It came on so fast, she could barely think. Pressure built, coiling like a spring, winding tighter and tighter until she was sure the tension in her would snap. Every step she took, her jeans rubbed along her clit, sending shooting sparks through her bloodstream and inflaming her more.
“Take a break,” Evangeline said. “I’ve got this.”
Hot color rushed up Ashe’s neck and into her face. Even Evangeline knew that she was exhibiting the signs of heat in her cat. Where the hell was Timur when she needed him? Evangeline looked at her with sympathy, but Kyanite and Rodion, along with the two hit men, stared at her with fixed fascination and more than a little lust.
Abruptly, she turned and hurried into the privacy of the very warm kitchen. She had never wished for a cell phone. Her father had told her those were too easy to track, even the ones supposedly untraceable could be traced. She believed her father. He’d been a genius in a lot of ways. He’d built their own generator and could take apart and put together a computer. He didn’t seem such a genius now when she wanted to call Timur and tell him to run over. As in run . Fast.
Her body felt on fire. Scorching hot. Desperate for relief. She paced and breathed deeply, trying to rid herself of the hormones raging through her bloodstream. Something moved beneath her skin and her entire body itched, the wave slipping through her at an alarming rate, slowing and then beginning over again.
Her breasts felt swollen and achy. Her nipples were twin burning peaks. Her clit pounded with hot blood, but deep in her core intensity raged, a fiery passionate storm she couldn’t control. She needed sex desperately. Timur’s kind of sex. Hot and brutal. Wild. She wanted him to be so desperate for her that the moment he saw her, he would throw her up against the wall and get down to a savage pace that would quench the need pouring through her.
The broom closet door slowly opened. The movement was so stealthy, she might not have noticed but for her leopard, who was on alert. She wanted a mate near. She was rubbing and calling out, using her very potent pheromones to signal her closeness to her time. She wanted her mate close. Any motion, no matter how small, attracted her attention.
Ashe backed up, getting around the work island to put distance between the closet and her. She could try to hide, but the pheromones were easily read by a male leopard. If the hit team—and she was identifying the men as such—was the distraction so another member could slip inside and kill her, her going into heat had only aided them. She looked around quickly for a weapon. Evangeline had spilled milk earlier and had mopped it up. The mop lay against the far wall, its handle a long, thick wooden cylinder, the only thing she could see that might work. She made her way to it while the door continued to open.
As her fingers settled around the long handle, a man in a blue shirt burst out from behind the door. She swung the mop with all her strength at his head. It was the last thing he was prepared for. A knife dropped from nerveless fingers as she connected with his head, knocking him backward so that his back hit the closet door, slamming it closed. He seemed to bounce, and she hit him again.
Ashe had no idea if the background music playing would drown out the sound of the slamming closet door, but she kept her lips pressed tightly together to keep from making a sound. The man drew a gun from his boot and started to lift it. She struck, slashing down on his arm with the thick wooden pole.
“Bitch,” he snarled, as the gun went flying.
“Kyanite!” She wasn’t too proud to call for help, especially when blue shirt caught the mop handle and yanked. “Kyanite! I need your help.”
The man ripped the pole out of her hands and she leapt toward the far corner where the gun had landed. Now, he was in possession of the longer reach and he swung it at her head with lethal force.
Kyanite leapt into the air from the doorway, driving at his opponent’s chest with both feet. He took him all the way down to the floor. They landed in a rolling tangle of arms and legs. She stood there, holding her breath, legs apart, hands up and aiming straight at the assassin’s head. The problem was, her target kept moving, and she couldn’t fire and take the chance of hitting Kyanite. Nor did she want to fire, not with a roomful of cops just beyond the kitchen door.
“I knocked over the mop bucket, Evangeline,” she called. “Sorry. We’re cleaning it up.”