she isn’t indulging her travel addiction. She’s currently hard at work on her next paranormal romance. For more about her books or the exploits of a nomadic author, please visit her website at www.viviandrews.com or stop by her blog at viviandrews.blogspot.com. Vivi also loves to hear from readers and invites you to email her at vivi@viviandrews.com.
Look for these titles by Vivi Andrews
Now Available:
Karmic Consultants
The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant
The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story
The Sexorcist
The Naked Detective
Serengeti Shifters
Serengeti Heat
Serengeti Storm
Serengeti Lightning
What happens in Atlantic City…changes everything.
The Naked Detective
© 2010 Vivi Andrews
Karmic Consultants, Book 4
The “gift” that makes Ciara Liung the FBI’s prized secret weapon makes her existence more like a curse. Unable to bear human contact, she lives as a hermit, immersing herself in the water that gives her peace and amplifies her power.
Her new FBI handler, though, only believes what he can see. The problem? Her gift—the ability to psychically locate stolen jewels—only works in the nude.
Special Agent Nathan Smith can’t believe he’s expected to babysit some psychic finder. Psychic…right. An undercover op gone wrong may have left him a desk jockey—and Ciara’s charms are more distracting than he cares to admit—but he’s a field agent at heart. She’s working some kind of angle. It’s just a matter of time before he unravels it.
Sent to Atlantic City to recover a ruby necklace for Monaco’s royal family, both finder and Fed are pushed outside their comfort zones, and discover more than they ever believed possible. And when a trap is sprung, they realize they stand to lose much more than a sparkly stone…
Warning: This book contains gambling, go-go dancers, public indecency, and every brand of trouble a troubled psychic can get into in America’s Playground.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Naked Detective:
Ciara was standing in the stall, pulling her dress over her head, when she realized Nate had actually let her out of his sight. He hadn’t swept the bathroom to make sure there weren’t other exits or frisked her for a hidden cell phone. He’d just let her walk in here without so much as a second glance.
In the four days she’d known him, that was unprecedented.
Could Nate Smith actually believe her?
Ciara came out of the bathroom to find Nate leaning against a slot machine as he waited. He looked utterly relaxed, as if there hadn’t been even a flicker of doubt in his mind that she would return to him. Trust. It seemed to have burst open between them impossibly fast.
She didn’t know when she had started trusting him, a moment ago, a day ago, maybe a part of her had started trusting him the moment he rang her doorbell. But his trust of her seemed to hinge on that moment in the tank. Sure, she’d done it so he would believe her, but now she was suspicious of that instant faith.
Nate levered himself away from the slots. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.” He started to reach for her hand again, then snatched his hand back. His eyes scanned her from her flip-flop bedecked toes all the way up to her still-damp hair, as if checking for war wounds.
Ciara rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. Better than fine. I’m—” Again words failed. This feeling, it was too much. “Come on. We’ve got a necklace to find.”
She grabbed his hand and dragged him behind her toward the street exit. Ciara felt like laughing, though she didn’t know why.
She wore his jacket over her dress—the shawl a casualty of her dunking—but as soon as they stepped out of the air-conditioning of the casino, she shrugged it off. The sun hit the skin of her arms and felt delicious. For once she was outside, surrounded by people and not worried about being brushed against.
Though maybe she should be worried. What if it was only Nate she could touch?
He hailed a taxi and ushered her into the backseat, careful as he had been all week not to touch her skin.
“The Borgata, please,” she told the driver.
Nate climbed in after her. “No,” he said, “let’s go back to the hotel. You can rest—”
“The Borgata,” she repeated, more firmly. No more invalid treatment. No more hiding.
There were a million things she’d never done. Too many things. A wild excitement pulsed through her veins. A thousand possibilities.
She could eat in a restaurant, dance in a club, go to a movie in a crowded theater where the schmuck next to her would steal her armrest. She could fly on a