I went to get up and out of the mine car when Jim pulled me back down, then practically got on topof me so I couldn’t escape. There was passion and longing in his eyes, and before I knew it, his lips were pressed to mine, his hands framing the back of my neck tenderly holding me there. It was a light graze, not forceful. Like he was giving me space to easily turn away if I wanted too.
But his lips were pillows. Unexpectedly soft but also full of static, making my body tingle. My arms were trapped between us in a position where I could place my palms on his chest and push, but instead of pushing, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer, his muscular chest touching mine. It felt amazing with his weight on me. He tasted like the atmosphere though, given we were underground.
He broke the connection, leaning away slighting and leaving me feeling fluttery for a moment before I opened my eyes again. Whatever I was feeling, I think he was feeling too, because he looked like he was crashing down from a high or drunkenness.
And, oh my God, I could feel his hardness against my leg! Mine was probably even harder!
Then it hit me.
Holy hell, my first kiss was in a mine car!
A MINE CAR!
“Why did you do that?” I needed a verbal confirmation. The kiss wasn’t going to do it. I needed to know from the same mouth that made me feel light as a feather, and yet hard as a rock.
“Because I couldn’t help myself, you are so cute when you uncontrollably ramble,” he smirked. “But I also needed to shut you up.”
“So, you kissed me?” I whispered, trying to get my brain to process the event I just experienced for the first time ever, “In. A. Mine. Car.” Clearly, I still can’t get over that detail.
With my hands flat on his chest, Jim leaned his forehead onto mine, looking into my eyes. “I kissed you, in this mine car,” he repeated back but added, “And I enjoyed it.” Then he pressed his groin against me, his hardness as proof, like I could have missed that.
I am not going to be able to function today. This was all happening too fast, with so many moving pieces that I was having a hard time keeping track of. That was when Jim shifted a bit, his knee leaning between my legs when I felt pressure against the erection I sprouted. I could tell he felt it against his leg when he continued to shift back and forth, rubbing.
He smirked at me.
This just keeps getting better. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice even though I know he sprung one too. I covered my face with both hands in embarrassment. I wanted to disappear or time travel anywhere but here.
“Charlie, it’s fine. It’s going to happen.” Jim was prying one of my hands away for me to look at him before he continued with humor in his eyes, “Although, you might want to try to hide it until it goes down as we really don’t have time for me to take care of that for you at the moment.”
I slapped my hand back to my face. I felt like it was on fire.
He laughed. Actually laughed, which had this metallic echo to it, since we were still laying in the mine car.
“Come on, we are so late. Will is going to have a cow if he makes his rounds and we aren’t where we are supposed to be,” he sat up on his knees, pulling me with him, my face level with his stomach.
As I was quickly getting out of the minecar, and out of that precarious position, I heard shuffling frombehind me. “Did you hear that?” I looked in the opposite direction we came from, toward the room. I turned on my headlight, but nothing was there, but my senses were sizzling.
“It was probably loose coal sliding,” Jim said, trying to put me at ease with a hand on my back pushing me back the way we came. “That’s room four, the most unstable of all of them. Will only ever assigns three to four teams in there at a time, if any at all.”
The rest of the day went off smoothly, even if I kept stealing glances at Jim and his physique. Even with us working through our lunch break to try to get more done, Will questioned why we didn’t have as many loads as other teams. Jim just told him I was still getting used to the workload, and I gladly took the blame.
Totally worth it.
Leaving for the day felt weird. I think Jim was feeling it too, because the look in his eye was conflicting. But all he said was, “Good work today, Charlie. I’ll see you tomorrow,” before giving me a pat on the back and went into the dry room.
The rest of my night was uneventful. My dad was still his normal self. We made a quick stew dinner from canned beans, two potatoes, a fresh carrot and a small piece of pork. We ate in silence before I retired to my room to continue to read my book, but I didn’t get very far because my mind kept getting distracted by a dirty blonde hair man that gave me a gift I had been longing for, thinking it was never going to happen for me.
A kiss.
Tuesday started the same as the day before, except this time, the sky wasn’t welcoming. It was a dark cloudy overcast with no sun in sight. We got to the dry room where Jim and David were yet again waiting. I gave him a small smile which he returned but I felt some sadness as well. He must have seen because his expression shifted, just a tinge. If you weren’t paying attention, you would have missed it.
We wordlessly started walking to the tunnel and lift cage, David and Dad behind us, David gabbing away about how his mother tried to set him up with a girl my age, and he didn’t know how he felt about that.
After depositing our pails on the shelf along with my book, hoping to read some during lunch, we went to our assignments to start our day.
We picked up where we left off yesterday on the fourth pillar, which in all honesty is just a section of the outer wall of the room. My headlamp showed two sets of men farther down, working hard before the back wall of the room.
I stepped away from Jim and started swinging. I hit the wall twice in quick successions. When I was about to swing again, Jim saying my name stopped me. It wasn’t the fact he said it, it was the worry I heard. When I turned and shined the light in his face, his eyes were filled with questions.
