unbuttoned her shirt.
The small voice was back, annoying and persistent. ‘This man has too much finesse. He’s bad news. You’re just another conquest.’ Kate banished the voice by concentrating on undoing Curtis’ leather belt. He released the clip on her bra.
Kate closed her eyes and groaned again as she felt Curtis run his hand very slowly down her back and over the outside of her thigh.
Curtis kissed Kate’s breasts and slowly licked and sucked her hard, erect nipples. He searched Kate’s tongue with his own and as she reached for him, she found that he was hard and wet.
Curtis moved his hand slowly between her thighs and caressed her, gently at first, and then more powerfully.
‘Fuck me, Curtis,’ Kate whispered, guiding him into her.
As their tongues found each other, Kate could feel herself rising on a huge wave.
‘Oh fuck me, Curtis! Fuck me!’ she urged softly, her voice catching in her throat as the wave took her still higher.
She wrapped her arms more tightly around his broad shoulders and pushed against him in perfect harmony with the increasing power of Curtis’ lean, muscled body, the wave taking her higher and higher.
‘Oh fuck,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Oh fuck! I’m going to come! Oh fuuu… ck!’ Kate’s lightly tanned and freckled face was contorted in exquisite pain as Curtis too, let out a muffled cry and she felt him convulsing inside her.
Kate basked as she slowly surfed the wave into the beach. Curtis held her for a very long time, kissing her softly, and gently stroking her back.
CHAPTER 64
D eputy Harbour Master Murray Black drove along Hickson Road in the pre-dawn darkness, past the stone convict buildings and on towards Dock No. 5 and the main entrance to the container docks that lined the west side of the central business district of Sydney. The headlights of Murray’s battered Saab probed through the rain that was falling in silvery sheets. It was going to be one of those foul weather days that made control of the busy harbour even more difficult, but not even the rain or the 45-knot westerly that was blowing could diminish Murray’s good spirits. Today marked his tenth year as a deputy harbour master. After a stint in the Australian military Murray had finally agreed with his wife that a young family shouldn’t be pushed from pillar to post, and he’d joined the Sydney Ports Authority. It had been a wrench to leave the Army but his experience as an operations officer had been a good match for Sydney Ports, who needed men and women trained to be calm in a crisis and make instant, common sense decisions.
The entrances to Sydney Harbour and the nearby Port Botany were strictly controlled to the extent that ships’ masters often complained about excessive red tape, but Murray knew that it was one of the safest maritime environments in the world and he intended to do everything he could to keep it that way. Fit, wiry and not overly tall, Murray Black had a rugged face and light blue eyes. His blond hair was kept short in a regulation military haircut; some habits died hard.
Today was his daughter Louise’s eighth birthday. As Murray approached the security gates and the guardhouse that marked the entrance to the container dock and the port control tower he smiled to himself, recalling his daughter’s pleas the night before as he was watching television after the family had been out late-night shopping.
‘Can we go to Luna Park for my birthday, Daddy? Please, please, pleeeeease. Can we?’
‘We’ll see, little one. Daddy has to work tomorrow so we wouldn’t get there until after lunch.’
Louise crawled onto his lap, put her arms around his neck, rested her blonde head on his shoulder and whispered, ‘I love you Daddy, can we go please?’
Murray glanced out towards the kitchen where his wife Anthea was preparing dinner. Anthea rolled her eyes and raised her eyebrows, as if to say ‘Daddy’s girl has you wrapped around her little finger. How are you going to get out of this one?’
‘ Please, Daddy, please, pleeeeease?’
‘Okay. If that’s where you want to go, little one, that’s where we’ll go. Mummy can bring you and the boys in on the train in the morning and I’ll meet you there after I finish my shift,’ Murray said, giving his daughter a kiss and again looking across to Anthea.
She shook her head and smiled warmly.
Murray pulled up behind a semi-trailer in the waiting bay in the middle of Hickson Road, the traffic sloshing past intermittently on either side. It had been over thirty years since he’d been to the fun park in the shadows of the northern pylons of the bridge. It was a toss-up as to who was more excited – Louise or the six-year-old twins, Jonathon and Matthew – and although Anthea wasn’t letting on, Murray knew that she was pleased too. It was about creating family memories. As they’d made love together that night, Anthea had whispered, ‘We’re so lucky, Murray. I love you.’
‘I love you, too,’ he’d replied.
CHAPTER 65
A s the dawn broke over the Pacific Ocean, Captain Arne Svenson, the Swedish captain of the Ocean Venturer, stepped quietly onto the bridge of the massive tanker. Svenson was a tough professional who had dedicated his life to the sea; no matter what time of the day or night he was always on the bridge hours before any ship under his command entered a port. He glanced in the direction of the helmsman and was mildly irritated to find that Mussaid ibn Khashoggi was on duty. Not that the swarthy Saudi Arabian wasn’t competent, quite the reverse. He was arguably one of the most professional and reliable men in the tanker’s entire crew, but Arne had been around seamen and the sea for nearly forty years and there was something about Khashoggi that made him uncomfortable. The Saudi never relaxed and Captain Svenson was convinced he had some sort of chip on his shoulder, but his early attempts to find out what that might be had been met with surly denial.
Acknowledging the greeting of his first officer, the Captain checked the tanker’s position on the GPS and then checked the chart. They were abeam of Point Perpendicular, less than 100 nautical miles from Port Jackson and the entrance to one of Captain Svenson’s favourite harbours. More importantly, the tanker’s arrival in the port would coincide with the high tide. The Ocean Venturer had a draft of 14.2 metres and the UKC, the under keel clearance, was critical. He knew that Port Jackson’s next high tide was 1.7 metres and that it would occur at 10.05 a.m. He also knew that the Western Channel of the harbour was dredged to a minimum of 13.7 metres at mean low tide. The critical points were the tops of the two tunnels the authorities had built on the harbour floor; even at high tide the massive tanker would clear them by barely a metre.
Captain Svenson thanked the duty steward for the mug of hot coffee and sank into the big leather chair that he’d worked a lifetime to win. Driving rain was lashing the reinforced glass on the bridge that towered over the Ocean Venturer’s wide deck, with its jigsaw puzzle of interconnecting pipes and winches. A great mass of foaming water exploded over the tanker’s huge bow but the Ocean Venturer barely registered the vibration. Svenson had a deep respect for the awesome power of the sea but the waves would not trouble him or his ship today. As if to underline his judgement the Ocean Venturer smashed through another wave, causing dark, foaming water to cascade over the decks only to disappear into the scuppers, spent and defeated. He glanced at the radar screen. There was a small blip on the screen, about 10 nautical miles further inshore.
‘She’s a bit bloody close in this weather,’ Svenson observed.
