Aspen stepped off the top stair. The thick wool carpet of the master hallway absorbed her footsteps.
She walked past a discarded, custom-tailored suit jacket on the floor. A torn silk tie lay next to it.
The frosted glass door of the master bathroom was cracked open. Thick, hot steam poured out into the hallway.
She slipped through the gap. Through the heavy condensation, she saw a massive, shadowy figure standing under the rainfall showerhead.
Suddenly, the shadow moved.
He lunged through the water with terrifying speed. A large, heavily calloused hand shot out of the steam, aiming straight for her throat.
Aspen's pupils contracted. She raised her right arm, bringing the ceramic knife up to slash his forearm.
The man's hand shifted mid-air. He grabbed her wrist with bone-crushing force.
Before she could pivot, he shoved her backward. Aspen's spine slammed hard against the freezing bathroom tiles. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.
The ceramic knife slipped from her numb fingers. It clattered onto the wet floor.
Aspen looked up. She stared into a pair of dark, bloodshot eyes. The man's jaw was clenched tight, his chest heaving. His skin was flushed a deep, unnatural red.
The heat radiating off his massive body was suffocating. His breathing was ragged, animalistic. Aspen recognized the symptoms instantly. He was pumped full of a military-grade aphrodisiac.
His control was breaking. He lowered his head, his hot breath ghosting over the sensitive skin of her neck.
Aspen's eyes went cold. She brought her right knee up and drove it violently into his stomach.
The man grunted. The pain caused his grip on her wrist to loosen for a fraction of a second.
Aspen seized the opening. She grabbed his broad shoulders, using his own body weight to pull herself up. She wrapped both of her legs tightly around his thick neck. Her inner thighs cramped instantly, the dormant muscles tearing under the sudden, explosive demand.
She twisted her hips violently, using the centrifugal force of a perfect scissor kick, praying her joints wouldn't dislocate from the strain.
The massive man lost his footing on the wet tiles. He crashed hard onto his back, sending water splashing across the room.
Aspen rolled with the momentum. She ended up straddling his chest, pressing her knee down hard on his sternum to pin him. Her lungs burned, her atrophied muscles trembling violently from the exertion of the takedown. She didn't have the strength to hold down a man of his size for long. She had to shut down his nervous system. She raised her right hand, stiffening her index and middle fingers into a rigid spear. With brutal precision, she struck the bundle of nerves just below his collarbone, then immediately drove her knuckles into the vagus nerve on the side of his neck. Kasey gasped, his eyes flying wide open as a shockwave of localized paralysis short-circuited his brain's frantic signals. Aspen didn't stop there. She reached up, grabbed the heavy chrome handle of the showerhead, and wrenched it to the coldest setting. A blast of freezing, icy water pounded directly onto his face and chest. The extreme thermal shock, combined with the nerve strikes, forced his body into a massive reset.
His entire body convulsed under her.
Within seconds, the unnatural red flush drained from his skin. The wild, predatory glaze in his eyes shattered, replaced by sharp, calculating clarity.
His chest stopped heaving. He lay perfectly still on the wet floor, staring up at the woman sitting on his chest.
He did not yell. He did not attack. Instead, the corner of his mouth slowly curled into a dark, dangerous smirk.
