QUOTE : His thoughts became as scattered and aimless as the rivulets sluicing down her lush curves. She was a goddess rising from the water. Like Botticelli's Birth of Venus, except with heavy silvery hair darkened by her bath that, unlike Venus, she didn't use to hide her feminine secrets. She stood with her chin held at an obstinate angle, her shoulders straight in an observance of good posture, those soft gray eyes staring at him with a mixture of resolution and expectation.