Fallen Angels 01 - Covet by J.R. Ward Read Free Book Online

a table with two chairs—all of which were mercifully out of the path to the bathroom.
    He shaved fast and showered quick; then it was boxers and the Levi's and four aspirin. Undershirt was next, followed by socks and boots.
    On the way to the door, he grabbed his tool belt and his work jacket.

    His rental was on top of a garage-like outbuilding, and he paused at the top of the stairs, squinting so hard he bared his teeth.
    Goddamn...all that eye-piercing light made it seem like the sun had decided to return the Earth's attraction and move a little closer to seal the deal.
    Down the creaking wooden steps. Across the gravel drive to the cold truck. All the way with an expression like he had a spike through his foot.
    As he opened the driver's-side door, he caught a whiff of perfume and cursed. Images came back to him, all of them carnal as hell, each one of them another source of inspiration for the headache.
    He was still cursing and squinting as he drove out the lane and past the white farmhouse, the owner of which was his elderly landlord, Mr. Perlmutter. No one had lived in the big place for as long as Jim had been a renter, its windows boarded up on the inside, its porch perennially empty of wicker anything.
    That nobody-home routine along with the thirty days' notice to get out were his two favorite parts about where he stayed.
    On the way to work, he pulled into a gas station and bought a large coffee, a turkey sub, and a Coke. The quick mart smelled like old shoes and laundry softener, and there was a probability that the sandwich had been made last week in Turkey, but he'd been eating the same thing for the last month and was still upright in his boots, so the shit obviously wasn't killing him.
    Fifteen minutes later he was steaming up Route 151N, drinking his coffee, wearing his sunglasses, and feeling marginally more human.
    The job site was on the western shore of the Hudson River, and when he got to the turnoff for it, he recapped the Styrofoam mug and ten-and-two'd the wheel. The lane that went down the peninsula was pothole central, thanks to all the heavy-duty machinery that had barreled across its bare back, and the truck's shock absorbers bitched and moaned the whole way.

    At some point there was going to be manicured lawn everywhere, but for the moment the rolling earth resembled the skin of a fifteen-year-old boy. There were countless tree stumps across the shaggy winter-brown grass—pimples on the face of the land that had been created by a team of guys with chairt saws. And that wasn't the worst of it. Four whole cabins had been torn down, their footings and the bald plots beneath their first floors all that was left of structures that had been there for over a hundred years.
    But everything had to go. That was the command from the general contractor. Who was his own client.
    And about as much fun as a hangover on a cheery, chilly morning.
    Jim pulled into the line of pickups that was forming as more of the workers came in. He left the sandwich and the Coke behind on the floor of the cab to stay cool and crossed the tire-chewed dirt tracks toward the gestating house. With its skeleton of two-by-fours erected, its skin was now going up, the particleboard sheets being nailed onto the bone structure of the frame.
    Fucking thing was a monster, so big it was capable of making those McMansions in town seem the size of dollhouses.
    “Jim.”
    “Chuck.”
    Chuck, the foreman, was a six-foot guy with square shoulders, a round gut, and a perpetual cigar stub shoved in his mouth—and that was about it for conversation with him. Thing was, Jim was clear which part of the house he was working on and what he was going to do, and both men knew it. With a crew of about twenty carpenters on the project, there were varying degrees of skill and commitment and sobriety, and Chuck knew the drill with everybody. If you had half a brain and could throw a hammer well, he left you alone, because fuck knew he had enough on