Friction (Red Hot Private Eye, Novella, Vol. 2) by Melanie Shawn Page A
Authors: Melanie Shawn
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back, his mouth mere millimeters from hers, his voice equally ragged.
“There he is,” she said, inclining her chin to the place where she had just spotted, out of the corner of her eye, their suspect's car pulling out of his driveway.
In a rush of movement, Ethan snapped back to his previous all-business demeanor, pulled the car out into traffic three or four car lengths behind the target, and they were off. Where to? Fate, and the target, only knew. All Alyssa knew was that, come hell or high water, she and Ethan were not going to lose him.
Oh, and she knew one more thing. Ethan had almost kissed her. And, even though his lips had never even gotten the chance to touch hers, it was already the single most erotic experience she had ever had.
Damn.
She was in trouble!
Excerpt: My First
THE CROSSROADS SERIES
Book One
Chapter One
“Welcome home!” Katie said sardonically to herself as she sat, eyes closed, in her rental car on the side of Highway 90. She had a paper bag pressed tightly against her mouth and a mantra running through her brain on repeat.
You can breathe. Just breathe. Breathe in and out slowly. You can breathe.
Katie had been back in Illinois for less than an hour and here she was, smack dab in the middle of her first panic attack in five years. She gripped the steering wheel hard, trying to soothe her racing heart to anchor herself to reality. She forced her movements to be slow and deliberate.
This seems to be working, albeit slowly, she assured herself. When the overpriced therapist who taught her the breathing exercise and mantra had laid out his plan, Katie had wanted to roll her eyes. She had wanted to tell him that he clearly had no flipping idea what a panic attack really felt like if he thought that repeating a little magic spell in her mind about breathing was going to have any effect at all. She had wanted to tell him that panic attacks didn't feel like nervousness or butterflies you could just calm with the power of your mind. They felt like you were having a heart attack, like you were dying. Have you ever heard of someone having a heart attack curing themselves by simply telling themselves to breathe ?
Of course, Katie hadn't said any of those things. She had smiled politely, practiced with the bag, and kept her judgment of his professional aptitude (i.e., that he was a total quack!) entirely to herself.
Still , since she hadn't had a panic attack in the past five years. She hadn't ever been able to test out the technique and prove his quackitude with rock-solid evidence. Now that she was in the middle of one and the exercise actually seemed to be working?
Well, I'll move his status down to 'Jury's Still Out on the Level of His Quackosity' but I'm not nominating him for the Nobel Prize just yet, Katie thought. Of course, this wasn’t even close to a bad attack. This one was fairly mild.
But , that’s exactly how they had started ten years ago. They had begun as hyperventilating episodes and over time had developed into severe attacks resulting in her being rushed to the emergency room— twice —having truly believed she was having a heart attack. Which had not been the case.
Th e E.R. docs were the reason she had ended up lying on the overpriced therapist couch (metaphorically speaking; in reality she had sat in a plush leather chair). Once the doctors at the hospital had ruled out the possibility that anything was physically wrong with her, they had strongly recommended that she delve into the possibility that it was her psyche, not her body, that needed medical attention.
Even now , as the panic attack was subsiding, Katie was still feeling some of the physical symptoms. Her head felt as if it were floating away, her fingers were tingling as if they were being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles, and she was being bombarded by an obnoxiously loud ringing sound. She forced herself to anchor to the sensation of the paper bag digging into her lips to ground her in
“There he is,” she said, inclining her chin to the place where she had just spotted, out of the corner of her eye, their suspect's car pulling out of his driveway.
In a rush of movement, Ethan snapped back to his previous all-business demeanor, pulled the car out into traffic three or four car lengths behind the target, and they were off. Where to? Fate, and the target, only knew. All Alyssa knew was that, come hell or high water, she and Ethan were not going to lose him.
Oh, and she knew one more thing. Ethan had almost kissed her. And, even though his lips had never even gotten the chance to touch hers, it was already the single most erotic experience she had ever had.
Damn.
She was in trouble!
Excerpt: My First
THE CROSSROADS SERIES
Book One
Chapter One
“Welcome home!” Katie said sardonically to herself as she sat, eyes closed, in her rental car on the side of Highway 90. She had a paper bag pressed tightly against her mouth and a mantra running through her brain on repeat.
You can breathe. Just breathe. Breathe in and out slowly. You can breathe.
Katie had been back in Illinois for less than an hour and here she was, smack dab in the middle of her first panic attack in five years. She gripped the steering wheel hard, trying to soothe her racing heart to anchor herself to reality. She forced her movements to be slow and deliberate.
This seems to be working, albeit slowly, she assured herself. When the overpriced therapist who taught her the breathing exercise and mantra had laid out his plan, Katie had wanted to roll her eyes. She had wanted to tell him that he clearly had no flipping idea what a panic attack really felt like if he thought that repeating a little magic spell in her mind about breathing was going to have any effect at all. She had wanted to tell him that panic attacks didn't feel like nervousness or butterflies you could just calm with the power of your mind. They felt like you were having a heart attack, like you were dying. Have you ever heard of someone having a heart attack curing themselves by simply telling themselves to breathe ?
Of course, Katie hadn't said any of those things. She had smiled politely, practiced with the bag, and kept her judgment of his professional aptitude (i.e., that he was a total quack!) entirely to herself.
Still , since she hadn't had a panic attack in the past five years. She hadn't ever been able to test out the technique and prove his quackitude with rock-solid evidence. Now that she was in the middle of one and the exercise actually seemed to be working?
Well, I'll move his status down to 'Jury's Still Out on the Level of His Quackosity' but I'm not nominating him for the Nobel Prize just yet, Katie thought. Of course, this wasn’t even close to a bad attack. This one was fairly mild.
But , that’s exactly how they had started ten years ago. They had begun as hyperventilating episodes and over time had developed into severe attacks resulting in her being rushed to the emergency room— twice —having truly believed she was having a heart attack. Which had not been the case.
Th e E.R. docs were the reason she had ended up lying on the overpriced therapist couch (metaphorically speaking; in reality she had sat in a plush leather chair). Once the doctors at the hospital had ruled out the possibility that anything was physically wrong with her, they had strongly recommended that she delve into the possibility that it was her psyche, not her body, that needed medical attention.
Even now , as the panic attack was subsiding, Katie was still feeling some of the physical symptoms. Her head felt as if it were floating away, her fingers were tingling as if they were being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles, and she was being bombarded by an obnoxiously loud ringing sound. She forced herself to anchor to the sensation of the paper bag digging into her lips to ground her in
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