Page 68 of Five Mountain Daddies

I honestly can’t follow most of what she’s saying. She’s laying out market valuations, company prices, global trends, the sort of shit that I never pay attention to but probably should start now that I’m union head. I try to track her argument, but mostly I get lost watching her lips moving, and thinking about those lips wrapped around mycock.

This is going to be harder than I realized. Amelia is goddamn sexy and I want her so badly it almost fucking hurts, but on top of all that, I don’t know shit about contracts or any of that garbage. This is just some job that got shoved on my plate because nobody else wanted it. So here I am, staring at this sexy fucking woman, wanting to take her right here on this conference room table so badly it almosthurts.

When she finally finishes, I just watch her quietly, trying to digest itall.

“So you see,” she says finally. “We need to worktogether.”

“Because of,” I reach out and take the binder from her, “globaltrends?”

She nods a little. “That’sright.”

I toss the binder down onto the table. “I don’t know what global trends have to do with the hardworking folks outthere.”

She frowns a little. “I said already, it’s all connected. The performance of the company is connected to the performance of the workers,and—“

“Amelia,” I say, shaking my head and grinning. “I had no clue you were such anerd.”

That makes her flustered, which was my point. “Nerd? What? I’m just, I’m trying to explain,” shestumbles.

“Listen to me,” I say. “You want to work together. I can get with that. But in the end, we’re at opposite ends here. I want what’s best for my people, and you want what’s best for thecompany.”

“We can do both,” she sayssoftly.

“I don’t think we can,” I respond. “I think we’re going to have to struggle. Since when have big businesses ever given a shit about the little guy? We’re the definition of the littleguy.”

She chews her lip for a second. “You care about them, don’tyou?”

I nod once, feeling serious for once. “Yes, I reallydo.”

“Good,” she says. “I don’t know them. Hell, Samuel, I don’t know this town anymore. I’ve been away for a long time, and this job, this whole company, it was just shoved in my lap. I want to do a good job for everyone, but I’m going to need yourhelp.”

I don’t want to believe her, but I do. There’s something so earnest about what she’s saying, so simple and honest. For my whole life, I’ve hated people like her, people in power. The shareholders, the company’s profits, they’ve always mattered more than the workers. Crazy Tommy was a decent guy, but he was still a rich asshole that gave himself big fat bonuses every single year, while we toiled away in his fucking mine, barely making ends meet. They want to slash our benefits every few years, and we have to constantly fight for everything we have. Even basic things like standard of living raises and workplace safety are a constant concern forus.

Amelia represents those people, the people that have historically kept us down and sucked our fucking blood dry. But she’s not one of them. I can tell she’s not, although she might be one day. She’s too new to all this, too clean and pure. She seems like she cares toomuch.

I don’t want to ruin her, but I want her to see the world for what it is. She knew I was a miner from my fingernails, from the coal dust that’s shoved in there from hours and hours of working down there, coughing up coal and letting it stick to the sweat on my skin. She doesn’t know what it means to bedirty.

But I want to show her. “You really want to help?” I sayfinally.

“Yes,” sheanswers.

“Okay then.” I stand up suddenly. “Let me take you on a tour of themine.”

She looks surprised. “When?”

“Tomorrow,” I say. “Wear somethingcomfortable.”

“Uh,” she says, standing. “What do you mean,comfortable?”

I grin at her. “Not that sexy skirt or those fucking heels that make your ass lookfantastic.”

She blushes again but looks annoyed. “Samuel.”

“Just stating a fact. You look more like you want to get fucked than like you want to discusscontracts.”

She shakes her head. “I’ll see youtomorrow.”

“See youthen.”

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