Kitabı oku: «Hot Summer Flings», sayfa 4
CHAPTER SIX
MEGAN lagged a little behind as she followed Emilio into the building. They had crossed the foyer and entered a lift before her preoccupied brain made a fairly obvious leap.
‘This is not a restaurant.’
As she spoke the glass doors closed with a silent swish and the elevator rose silently. Megan, who was not fond of heights, did not take the opportunity to look down into the greenery-filled atrium below.
‘Smart and beautiful.’
Very beautiful, but not obvious, he mused, studying her face. She had classic English-rose beauty, her face a perfect heart shape, her pale complexion flawless. It was the sort of face that might not leap out of a crowd, but great, actually fantastic, bones and once you started looking you found you couldn’t stop.
Or is that just me?
She was about as far removed from the plastic production-line beauty that most of the females he encountered boasted, but then she had what cosmetic enhancement and beauticians could not give. Megan had class; quiet, understated class.
Unaware of his scrutiny, Megan slung him a dark look, smoothed her hair and tried to slow her rapid, shallow, audible inhalations as the elevator came to a smooth halt. She was uneasily aware that vertigo only explained part of her breathing difficulties.
‘Annoying and sarcastic,’ she countered, directing what she hoped was a cool, calm look up at him. ‘What is this place, Emilio?’ And why wasn’t the damned door opening? she wondered, sliding a stressed look at the button on the wall behind him.
She wasn’t claustrophobic and the space was far from cramped, but if the door didn’t open soon she wasn’t sure how long she could resist the strong impulse that was telling her to push him out of the way and punch in the instruction necessary herself or, failing that, bang on the door for help.
Emilio continued to stare as he gave a shrug of disinterest. The building, situated in one of Madrid’s most exclusive residential areas, had been an investment, one that he had actually forgotten he had made until his ever-efficient PA had pointed out that the penthouse apartment being empty could be an obvious solution to his temporary housing situation.
‘I live here.’
Megan’s stomach went into a lurching dive as she digested this information in silence. ‘Live?’ She was able to keep the panic from her voice, but not her tawny eyes, as she stared at a point midway up his broad chest. ‘Live as in …?’
He looked amused by the question. ‘Live, as in I go home to at the end of the day.’
Her eyes dropped as the sarcasm in his voice brought a flush to her cheeks. Agreeing to eat with him in a public place with people around was one thing, but this was not what she’d signed up for!
For God’s sake, Megan, she counselled herself crossly, act your age. How long could it take to swallow a cup of coffee and gulp down a pastry?
What was the alternative, run away like a frightened kid?
Emilio Rios, she reminded herself, could literally have any woman he wanted. He’s not lured you to his apartment to make a pass at you!
The recognition should have made her feel happier.
It didn’t. It wasn’t that she wanted to be someone else, she was happy being herself, but it would have been nice to know what it felt like to exude that indefinable something that made men notice you that way.
Men?
Or was it one specific man she wanted to notice her?
Megan closed down the line of thought, drawing a firm line under the ludicrous flow of speculation. She was a practical person, not given to wishing for things she could not have, and no amount of wishful thinking or Chanel suits were going to give her what women like Rosanna were born with.
As for wanting to be noticed by Emilio Rios. She pressed a hand to her stomach where a fluttering had joined the hollow feeling; even the thought of such a thing made her feel queasy.
Or something!
‘We could go to a restaurant if you prefer?’
Megan found herself responding to the challenge, imagined or otherwise, in his voice.
‘No, this is fine.’ She glanced down at her watch, silently trying to calculate how soon she could make an escape without looking rude.
Five minutes tops to gulp down coffee and a pastry, Megan reckoned, though actually what was so bad about appearing rude? It wasn’t as if he would recognise polite conversation if it bit him on his bottom.
‘You’re not on the clock. Relax.’
‘I am relaxed,’ she gritted, plastering on a determined smile.
Emilio, who had seen nervous bridegrooms who looked more relaxed, did not comment. ‘You seemed surprised that I have an apartment. What did you think—I sleep at my desk?’ he asked, sounding amused.
Her golden eyes swept upwards. ‘Wherever you sleep, I’m sure it’s not alone.’
‘And that bothers you?’ He framed the question slowly, his perceptive gaze trained on her face.
Megan found his expression unreadable, but she couldn’t shake the crazy conviction he could read her mind.
‘Bother?’ Her slender shoulders lifted in an uninterested shrug. ‘It’s none of my business what you do or with whom.’
‘But I’m guessing that doesn’t stop you having strong views on the subject,’ he drawled ironically.
‘I have none whatsoever,’ she retorted without a blush.
She was just glad that there was no Josh to challenge her lie.
She hadn’t even realised that she zeroed in on every reference to Emilio she came across until her flatmate Josh had pointed it out after she had had delivered a few juicy quotes from an offending article, and then, despite his clear lack of interest in the subject matter, had thrust it under his nose.
‘How does her dress stay up? That’s what I’d like to know.’
It was clear from the red-carpet shot of the couple that Emilio knew how it came off. The woman was plastered up against him like glue.
‘Mioaw!’ Josh laid the paper aside without looking at it and carried on drinking his coffee. ‘Why the interest in this guy, Megan?’
‘I’m not interested.’
He arched a brow. ‘And judgemental, which isn’t like you.’
‘I’m not—’ Innately honest, Megan was unable to complete the sentence. ‘Well, Emilio can be pretty judgemental himself.’ And with an awful lot less cause! She recalled his lecture on the last occasion they had met, despite the fact that she had been the victim of an unwanted pass and he had treated her like some sort of tart.
‘Really? That sounds interesting.’
‘Well, it wasn’t,’ she said discouragingly. She had no intention of dredging up the humiliating subject for Josh or, for that matter, anyone else.
She had put it very firmly behind her.
‘He is just a friend of Philip’s.’
‘For someone who’s not interested you seem awfully concerned about who he’s sleeping with.’ Josh, his blue eyes gleaming, angled a speculative look at her flushed face. ‘Were you two ever …?’
‘No, we were not!’
Chuckling, Josh held up his hands. ‘I just thought maybe he was the man.’
‘What man?’
‘The one responsible for your nun-like existence.’
‘I have a healthy social life—’
Josh cut across her protest. ‘And zero sex life, and don’t try and deny it, sweetheart, the walls are extremely thin. You could no more have a secret affair than I could.’
Knowing a defensive comment would prolong the teasing, she had maintained a dignified silence, but it had started her thinking.
Perhaps she did think a little too much about Emilio Rios?
He was not even part of her life any longer. He had been a friend of Philip’s, not hers, so there was no reason for him to contact her. They lived in very different worlds.
Pushing away the memory of that embarrassing conversation, she looked Emilio in the eyes and added, ‘But I’d sooner not read about it while I’m eating my breakfast.’ She pursed her lips primly. Tales of a person’s sexual stamina were not, in her opinion, suitable reading for any time of day.
Emilio arched a brow as he wedged his broad shoulders up against the glass wall of the elevator as he studied the top of her glossy head.
The urge to run his fingers across the smooth conker-brown surface and allow the glossy strands to slide through his fingers was almost impossible to resist.
Megan had renewed her study of the carpeting.
She mightn’t have strong views on whom he slept with, but he was certainly bothered by whom she spent her nights with, he conceded wryly. If Philip was right about the boyfriend moving out—and Emilio did not think that was an unreasonable conclusion to draw from his comment that Megan was thinking of moving as her present place was too expensive now Josh had moved out—it seemed hopeful that this Josh was no longer one of that number.
Having managed to remain blasé while convincing him she cared not at all about whom he slept with or where, Megan felt the colour rush to her face the moment their eyes connected.
‘Do you live alone?’ You just carry on digging that hole, Megan! And why not jump in for good measure?
‘I do. How about you?’ he asked casually.
‘Yes, I do.’ Megan cleared her throat and added, ‘I was wondering, is there a problem with the lift?’
It was actually pretty hard to sound casual when you were trying not to inhale his scent—not scent in a perfume sense. Although soap and shampoo were definitely involved, mingled in there with the more disturbing fragrance was a scent of warm male and Emilio.
She forced a breath into her oxygen-deprived lungs and shuddered with the effort.
‘Are you all right?’
The mocking light had faded from Emilio’s eyes as, concern etched in the furrows on his broad brow, he took a step towards her. Her skin was as pale as paper, the only trace of colour remaining in her face the rich tawny gold of her wide-spaced eyes.
Megan shadowed the action, her own hasty step backwards bringing her shoulder blades up against the wall of the elevator.
Her reaction sent Emilio’s dark brows in the direction of his ebony hairline as he raised both hands to his chest, palm flat out to her. ‘Relax. What on earth did you think I was going to do?’ he asked, his lean face taut with impatience.
Relax—wasn’t bad advice to take if she didn’t want to give the impression she was a raving lunatic.
Embarrassed, she peeled herself away from the wall. ‘You startled me,’ she retorted, a defensive note of complaint in her voice.
‘Clearly. I have seen rabbits less jumpy than you.’ His eyes narrowed to speculative slits as he slowly scanned her face. ‘Anyone would think you are scared of me.’
The velvety rasp in his deep voice had a tactile quality like raw silk. She had no control over the shudder that slid the length of her spine like the stroke of a finger. In her mind the phantom finger was long and tanned and— Stop it, Megan!
Ashamed and exasperated by her escalating physical reaction to every aspect of him, Megan studiously avoided making eye contact as she gritted her teeth.
‘Scared?’ She lifted her chin and laughed at the suggestion. ‘I’m sure you make grown men cry, but not me,’ she conceded. ‘But—’ She stopped. He had made her cry, but only the once.
Refusing to allow her thoughts to slip back to an occasion that rated pretty high in her ‘the worst moment in my life’ league, she sketched a tight smile and added, ‘Not today anyway.’
And never again. She would never again allow him to make her feel sordid and grubby.
Emilio looked at her mouth and felt the desire in his veins burn hotter as he thought to himself today would not be soon enough for him.
He had always prided himself on his ability to keep his libido on a leash. There had only ever been one woman who had breached his defences and she was standing here now, standing here wanting him as much as he did her, so he was damned if he was going to deprive himself of the unspoken invitation that glowed in her incredible golden eyes when she looked at him.
A nerve clenched in his cheek as his mask of composure threatened to slip. The scorching sexual tension between them was stronger than anything Emilio had ever experienced in his life—she had to be feeling it!
Or was he projecting his fantasies onto her?
The question surfaced and was immediately quashed. He exhaled. He knew when a woman wanted him; she was feeling it.
Megan wanted him.
The question he ought to be asking, he told himself, was why, given the overwhelming, almost primal attraction between them, was she putting on this ludicrous act?
Did she think she could pretend that it wasn’t happening and it would go away? Why would she want it to?
He dug his fingers into his close-cropped hair and tried to think past the sexual frustration pounding in his skull and other parts of his anatomy.
The Megan he knew had an engaging candour and here she was acting like some shy virgin, which he knew she wasn’t.
A girl who looked like Megan did not go through college without drawing a lot of male attention. In retrospect he could see that it should not have been a surprise to him when her flat door was opened by a half-naked man with a quiz-show-host smile—he turned out to be a doctor—and eyes that were too close together.
And yet it had been a surprise. It had been a total bombshell! Emilio had felt as though someone had just gut-punched him, but of course someone hadn’t, the humiliation had been totally self-inflicted.
A child could have predicted this, but he hadn’t. He had spent a year anticipating this moment, covering, or so he’d thought, every angle, but not once during that time had he thought she would be with someone else.
The guy, clearly very much at home, had invited him in, explaining Megan was in the shower.
Emilio had declined the offer.
Could this be simply out-of-control hormones? Megan lifted a hand to her buzzing head. Maybe he was right—maybe her sugar levels were low. It was better than the alternative—better than admitting that she had zero defences against the sizzling sexual charge he exuded.
‘It … it h-hasn’t opened,’ she stuttered, staring at the closed door.
She heard him curse, the low savage imprecation loud in the confined space as he banged the heel of his hand on the control panel. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say that you suffer from claustrophobia?’ he demanded, scanning her pale classic profile.
‘I don’t,’ she protested, too slow-witted to accept this perfect excuse to explain her odd behaviour.
‘So what’s wrong with you?’ he asked, scepticism mingled with irritation.
Again Megan’s tongue bypassed her brain. ‘You—’ She stopped, then was inspired. ‘I was just surprised you live somewhere like this. I always pictured you living in some sort of ancient mausoleum filled with antiques, a town version of your little place in the country.’
He tipped his dark head in a concessionary nod to the suggestion, and straightened up to his full impressive height as the glass doors of the private elevator silently opened into a very white space. Not that she was actually noticing; she was too busy asking herself why she was here.
Like you don’t know?
Ignoring the sarcastic contribution of the snide voice in her head and the hard knot of illicit excitement low in her belly, Megan fought her way through the mind-fogging confusion in her head.
Sexual attraction, Megan told herself, was a kind of insanity, and should be treated as such. Knowing her weakness, she reasoned, gave her a degree of control.
Her tawny eyes were drawn in the direction of the tall, silent figure watching her. The silence stretched.
The invitation had been for breakfast, she reminded herself, and that was why she was here. She wouldn’t let anything happen again; she would eat and leave. Sure, he had kissed her in the airport and had appeared not to want to stop, but that had been an act. For Emilio kissing her had not been a big deal.
Only it was to her. It was a very big deal to be kissed by Emilio Rios, but she would have died before she’d confess as much to him.
‘You did not look surprised, you looked …’ He paused, considering the question and, much to her dismay, her mouth.
Unhappy, not just about the way he was staring, but also the idea of him relentlessly pursuing the question to its conclusion, she rushed to fill the developing silence.
‘Oh, all right!’ She sighed, lifting her hair off her neck with her hand as she pursed her lips and evinced a show of reluctance before admitting, ‘You might have been right. I do need feeding.’
For a split second she thought he was going to push, then to her relief Emilio grinned. His smugness, she decided, struggling to drag her stare from the curve of his sensually full lower lip, was infinitely preferable to him guessing the lustful direction of her thoughts.
‘I am always right, and I do possess the sort of home you speak of,’ he admitted, stepping through the door into the white apartment.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MEGAN moved to follow Emilio and hesitated, unable to shake the irrational conviction that by stepping over the threshold she would be committing herself to more than breakfast, which she wasn’t, but what if he thought …?
What if he had more planned than breakfast? She had no doubt that he took sex as casually as he did kisses.
How was he to know she didn’t?
She knew she was here for breakfast, but who was to say he did? He might assume that she knew breakfast was some sort of code for sex.
‘We could do the restaurant option if you prefer. You did say you looked too much of a mess to be seen anywhere … posh,’ Emilio reminded her. ‘I thought you would appreciate the lack of strangers being traumatised by your appearance.’ Strangers did not fit in with his plans for the rest of the day, as he pictured her tangled skein of glossy hair spread out on a pillow.
‘Traumatised …’ she choked. Her flashing golden eyes narrowed in his face. Indignation had carried Megan across the threshold without realising it until the door did the spooky swishy thing behind her, making her jump, and she momentarily transferred her anger to the inanimate object.
‘You afraid that being seen in public with a female who hasn’t got her surgically enhanced boobs on show will be bad for your reputation?’ she charged scornfully as she glanced downwards, adding, ‘What’s wrong with the way I look?’
It was a question that Megan almost immediately bitterly regretted issuing.
As his gaze drifted downwards Emilio reined in his lust with difficulty.
She stood there rigidly, her heart pounding against her ribcage, her stomach churning as his dark eyes made a slow, insolent journey from the top of her head to her toes, then at an equally leisurely pace made the return trip.
Emilio swallowed, his head jerking backwards fractionally as he snapped himself clear of the sensual fog.
‘You were the one who was unhappy with the way you look.’ At his sides he forcibly unclenched his long fingers.
Time, it seemed, had not lessened the strength of the primal emotions that she had shaken loose in him two years ago. He had wanted her then and he still did.
‘You didn’t have to agree.’
He frowned. ‘Don’t put words into my mouth,’ he said, staring at her lips still swollen from his kiss.
The husky caution brought Megan’s gaze helplessly zeroing in on the area under discussion. She felt her anger slip away as a silent sigh lifted her chest as she shook with the memory of his kiss.
The texture of his warm lips as they moved over her mouth, the lust, slammed through her body making her literally rock back on her heels.
She blinked hard to banish the memory, her control worn paper-thin as she nibbled nervously at her full lower lip, unwittingly riveting his attention to the lush curve.
‘You want me to tell you you’re beautiful?’
Megan flushed. ‘Of course not.’
‘I would hardly be the first man to tell you this.’
Emilio had never considered himself a possessive man. He had never been guilty of double standards when it came to the subject of any healthy young woman exploring their sexuality.
It turned out that this enlightened attitude only worked when the woman in question was not Megan.
‘Sure, I stop traffic on a regular basis. So, why are you living here if you have a palace or something, or is this where you bring your …?’ She stopped, the hot colour rushing to her cheeks.
He arched a brow. ‘My …?’
‘Nothing.’
Her mortified mumble drew a grin that lightened some of the tension in his lean face. ‘Relax, this is not a love nest. I am temporarily homeless, while the experts sort out a bad case of dry rot. A man needs somewhere to lay his head and this location is not inconvenient,’ he explained, watching her expression as she completed a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn.
‘I see, you’re slumming it.’ Some slum! The place was a bachelor’s paradise, loft-style living with modern art on white walls, acres of gleaming chrome, leather and high ceilings.
It said nothing to her about the man who lived there.
‘You like it?’
‘I’m sure it’s every boy’s dream to live somewhere like this.’ If this place did not boast every techno gadget on the market she would eat her designer handbag—actually, her very good rip-off handbag.
Emilio responded to the smiling put-down with a lazy grin. The place was no fulfilment of a dream, it was a convenience and nothing more.
‘I have not been called a boy for some time.’
Megan’s superior smile wilted as their glances locked; the breath snagged in her throat.
She was not surprised. There was nothing even vaguely boyish about the man standing there. He radiated male arrogance like a force field. He was all man, all hard sinew and muscle. He couldn’t have been harder if he’d been hewn out of granite, but he wasn’t stone, he was flesh. Warm flesh.
The tight knot of desire low in her belly tightened so viciously that she gasped, looking away to hide the desire she felt must be written all over her face.
Emilio was a walking advertisement for masculinity and raw sex. Why was she thinking about sex, raw or otherwise?
Panic suddenly gripped her. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ Her head came up in response to the hand on her shoulder.
‘Yes, you do, Megan.’
Trapped by his dark compelling stare, she swallowed, her cheeks hot as she said in a small voice, ‘You offered me breakfast.’ The pause that followed her statement stretched her nerves to the breaking point.
‘So I did.’
Relieved that he hadn’t suggested her reasons for being here were far less clear-cut or innocent, she tried to resist the pressure of the hand on her shoulder that urged her down into one of the leather upholstered chairs.
‘Relax.’
He needed to stop telling her that—how on earth could she relax?
He loosened his silk tie and slid off his jacket, flexing his shoulders as if to alleviate some unseen tension in the muscles of his neck as he flung it on a sofa. Megan watched through the inadequate protective screen of her lashes as the action strained the seams of the white shirt he wore.
Her stomach muscles flipped and tightened another disturbing notch in response to the suggestion of restrained power and the faint shadow of body hair visible through the thin fabric.
Was his skin that same deep burnished gold all over?
An image flashed into her head of her fingers moving across the surface. The illusion was strong, so tactile that she had to remind herself it wasn’t real, but the tingle in her fingertips and the surge of liquid heat between her thighs were.
Megan, appalled and ashamed by her sexual awareness of him, sucked in a deep breath as she tried to focus on what he was saying.
‘So what’s the verdict?’
Flustered and embarrassed that he had caught her mentally undressing him and worse, Megan shook her head and echoed warily, ‘Verdict?’
‘On the apartment.’
Megan, barely able to conceal her relief, embraced the far safer subject of the interior design with enthusiasm. ‘Oh! Very tasteful,’ she said, turning her head and seeing, not the room, but the image in her head of Emilio minus his shirt. ‘But I’m not really into the minimalist look,’ she admitted. ‘Or technology.’
‘What are you impressed by?’ He arched a brow. ‘A man who can cook?’
‘You can cook?’
The shock in her voice drew a laugh from Emilio. ‘I will let you be the judge of that,’ he said, rolling up his sleeves to reveal hair-roughened sinewy forearms.
It was clear that Emilio knew his way around a kitchen. As she watched him Megan found herself wondering how well he knew his way around other places. Was he equally skilful in the bedroom? she wondered, watching as he whipped the eggs he had cracked into a bowl.
Shocked and ashamed at the direction of her thoughts, she lowered her gaze and wondered what was happening to her.
‘You don’t have to do this, you know. A coffee and a pastry or something would be fine.’
‘I know I don’t have to do this. I want to do this, and coffee and a pastry?’ He snorted scornfully. ‘I hope that is not your idea of a meal.’
‘I don’t have a lot of time for food.’
‘You should make time for the important things in life.’
‘I used to eat out quite a lot at a little place near where I live, but not so much since Josh—’ She gave a sigh. Life was a lot duller and quieter since her flatmate and best friend had decided to do a stint with an aid agency.
Her expression softened as she recalled his embarrassed response when she had said how much she admired his decision to quit his job to work in a Third World country.
Paying his debt to society and easing his conscience, he’d said, before he sat back and drew his fat consultant’s pay cheque.
She jumped, startled by the loud clatter that came from the kitchen area.
‘Sorry, I dropped it,’ Emilio said, putting the stainless-steel implement he had just picked up off the floor into the dishwasher.
A hard light of steely determination shone in his eyes as he began to whip the egg whites. It was his intention that, not only would Megan not smile dreamily when she thought about her ex, she would forget he ever existed!
Megan watched as he beat the hell out of the eggs. The annoyance on his face seemed pretty out of proportion with the incident to Megan, but then who knew? Maybe he was a bit of a diva in the kitchen.
It was half an hour later when Megan sat back in her seat and gave a sigh as she licked the butter from her fingertips. ‘You can cook. That was delicious.’
‘It was only eggs.’ He dismissed the feather-light creation with a self-deprecating shrug and filled her coffee cup. ‘Wait until you try my pasta al fungi porcini, and my clams have received rave reviews.’
The smile faded from Megan’s face. ‘I’m sure they have.’
His comment was a timely wake-up call.
She’d been in danger of feeling special, but she was sure he made all women feel special. Maybe cooking was a tried and tested part of his seduction technique? Not that Emilio needed to feed a woman to get her into bed, she admitted bleakly.
Emilio studied her expression with a frown. ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head and avoided his eyes. ‘Nothing.’
‘Do not lie to me, Megan, or yourself.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ she flared. ‘I’m not lying,’ she contended stubbornly. ‘Thank you for the breakfast, Emilio, but I—’
A whistled sound of irritation escaped his clenched teeth. ‘From where I’m sitting you have a problem. I think you’re in danger of developing a seriously bad relationship with food. Are you feeling guilty because you have eaten?’
She looked at him and thought, I’m feeling guilty because I can’t look at you without thinking of you naked.
‘Of course not. I promise you I do not have an eating disorder.’
‘Not now maybe,’ he conceded. ‘But these things can be insidious.’
‘Food is just not that important to me.’
‘Food is not important to all people,’ he conceded, leaning forward as he planted his forearms on the table. ‘But you are not one of them. Eating is a sensual pleasure. You take pleasure in food because you are a sensual person. Why deprive yourself of this pleasure to fit some stereotypical image? Why fight nature?
‘When it comes to food, the question,’ he contended, ‘is not what time is it, it is are you hungry?’
Megan glared at him in total exasperation. ‘Of course I’m hungry. I’m always hungry!’ she yelled.
Didn’t the stupid man realise that she was fighting nature that had decided in its infinite wisdom that she should be ten pounds heavier? ‘As for eating, when I’m hungry if I ate what I liked I’d be …’
Emilio, aware that he had hit a raw nerve or possibly several, turned his chair around, dragged it nearer to hers and straddled it. ‘Less cranky?’
‘Very funny,’ she snapped, unappreciative of his smart retort, a comment that could only be made by a person who had never worried about their weight.
Her eyes skimmed scornfully down his body. Either he had iron discipline or an enviably efficient metabolism.
Even fully clothed it was obvious he didn’t carry an ounce of excess flesh on his lean frame. He was all hard muscle and sinew.
The butterfly kicks that fluttered in the pit of her stomach made her hastily avert her gaze.
‘Do you think I’m a size ten by accident?’
‘I wondered if you had been ill,’ he admitted.
Megan’s jaw dropped as her head turned back towards him. Her amber eyes sparkled with incredulous wrath as she got to her feet.
‘I look ill?’ It was always ego-enhancing to be told you looked wrecked by a man who, in her head, had been the standard of physical perfection she measured his entire sex by since she was a teenager.
