Noah entered the farm in long strides and aiming for Luke. He talked to Holden without leaving Luke out of his sight.

“Holden, would you take care of Aaron for a sec? I need to talk to Luke”

“Sure, no problem”

Luke looked at him

“No, dad, it’s ok, we can talk later”

“Thanks, Holden”

Noah held Luke’s hand and pulled him out of the farm and into the barn

“What do you think you are doing? I don’t want to talk to you now, so leave me alone”

He tried to go back inside but Noah stopped him by putting his hand in Luke’s chest and pushing him against the wall.

“Eh!”

“Be quiet and listen. I have been getting letters from the colonel”

“What…?”

“That’s what’s been bothering me… he’s been sending me letters with only one sentence: “I’ll finish what I started””

“Noah…”

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you. I figured that if I did you’d be as scared as I am and I didn’t want you to be afraid because of my father…”

“Why now?”

“When you told me that you were fine… I felt terrible, because you weren’t, and you weren’t telling me and… and I understood… I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t trust you”

“You should’ve told me before… if you are scared then I want to be scared too, you hear me? That’s part of “For better or worse””

Noah put his hands in Luke’s neck and touched his forehead with his own

“I know… I hate what he is doing to us… At first I thought about leaving you two and go somewhere, but I couldn’t… I am too selfish, and as long as he stays in jail it should be alright... ”

“We’ll face it together”

“I am sorry…”

They kissed each other and Luke caressed Noah’s face

“I know. I want you to do something for me”

“Anything”

“Wake me up if you can’t sleep, don’t smile at me if you don’t feel like it, don’t tell me you’re fine if you are not…”

“I wanted to protect you”

“I don’t want you protecting me, Noah, I want you to share your life with me. We can protect Aaron together”

“Okay…”

“I love you”

“I love you too, Luke, more than you’ll ever know”

They kissed again

“We have to talk to Jack, if the colonel has our address”

“He doesn’t, he sends the letters to my old address in NY. I got the first one when we were there for our honeymoon and told them to forward the post to a post box. Mary sends the letters to me”

“You’ve been getting letters for a year?”

“I got that first one and he stopped for some time. I have gotten 4 in the last 2 months…”

“He is crazy… we have to do something… that’s why you didn’t want to go to Branson?”

“He would have known my name… they would have called me Noah Snyder, he would have known about you and me”

“Noah…”

“I don’t care if he wants to finish what he started if that means killing me, but I don’t want him to hurt you… I couldn’t live with that”

“He’s after you, I don’t think it has anything to do with me anymore”

“I wish you were right”

“I hate thinking what you’ve been through all this time”

“I am fine”

Luke smiled at him

“Hey”

Noah smiled too

“No, I mean it, I am better now that I’ve told you”

“If he finds you… I don’t want anything to happen to you, Noah, I would die…”

“Nothing is going to happen to me…”

They hugged each other tightly

“I promise”

“I am so sorry…”

Noah laughed at that

“You? Why are you sorry?”

“I hated you for not talking to me… I couldn’t even look at you without feeling so mad…”

“That’s why you haven’t let me touch you?”

Luke nodded

“I’ve felt so angry at you all this time… after that day at the Lakeview… back at home you didn’t sleep at all, and I realized that you hadn’t told me everything… I wanted to shout at you”

He smiled looking at him

“I wanted to hit you…”

Now he caressed him instead

“I didn’t dare do anything, afraid it would drive you further away from me…”

“Next time you can punch me, okay?”

They both laughed

“Okay… I will”

Noah whispered in Luke’s ear

“I miss touching you, making love to you, I miss it so much”

“Me too”

They kissed

“Noah…”

“Mmh?”

They kept kissing each other, Noah put his hand under Luke’s shirt and touched him

“Remember that time we… ahhh… don’t stop…”

“I won’t”

“We did it here… remember?”

Noah smiled caressing his husband’s neck with his lips

“Like I could ever forget that”

“We should… mmmhhh… go back…”

Noah put his hand inside Luke’s jeans and Luke laid his head back against the wall

“Ahhhh, Noah…”

“Still want to go back?”

“Noah…”

Luke pulled Noah closer to him and kissed him while Noah stroked him.

“Ahhhh… god… Noah… mmhhh”

Noah smiled and covered Luke’s mouth gently with his hand

“Sh, babe… keep it down”

Luke smiled and bit his lip

“Ahhh… they are... shit… waiting for us…”

Noah smiled again, seeing Luke losing control was one of the greatest things he’d ever seen.

“It’ll have to be quick, then”

Luke smiled and kissed Noah holding on to him. He was trying not to shout out loud, but Noah’s hand was driving him crazy.

“If you… ahhh… if you keep this up… I am not going to last long”

“Let go, then”

“But you…”

“Don’t think about me, babe, just let go”

And he did. He stopped thinking and just felt. He felt like flying, free. Both of them were breathing heavily. Luke kissed Noah

“I love you so much…”

Noah smiled and kissed him back

“Same here”

“You think that maybe we could put Aaron to bed early today?”

“Wanna bet?”

They hugged and enjoyed the closeness. They could fight against the world and win as long as they were together.


Chapter 7