One sultry evening not long ago, while alone and seminude in a small room in a house in Athens, Georgia, beautiful Nicole Voss decided to take matters into her own hands. The 23-year-old set up a camera on one side of the room, fiddled with angles and began photographing herself, intending to send the fruit of her labor to Playboy. 'I had to hit the camera's timer button, count to 10 and hope for the best,' she remembers. 'I tried to imitate a pose from one of the issues, so I took quite a few shots, running back and forth. I'm so critical!' Nicole's dash-and-pose approach caught us by surprise. Her stunning features--a blend of Greek and Swedish heritages--and her feminine charm are irresistible. We flew her to Santa Monica for a shoot, and the happy results sit before your eyes. Miss August grew up a tomboy in Florida, playing sports and making mud pies, but now as a young woman she says she's embracing her 'girlie-girl side.' When we caught up with her, she had just moved into her new home in Athens and was in the middle of renovating it. 'Home & Garden Television is my friend,' she says. 'I just started planting a veggie garden, some flowers and lavender. I had an impressive kiwi garden, but when I was having some land cleared, the guy totally bulldozed my kiwi bush. It's a sore subject.' When she's not alone photographing her beautiful body, Nicole dabbles in real estate, and she travels to Sweden a couple of times a year to visit her mother. As for her sense of humor, she says she's no angel. 'I can be very sarcastic, but I'm a good sport. You have to be. If you dish it out, you have to be able to take it. And believe me, I can dish it out.'