Protecting Helena Read online

  “Suck, baby girl. That’s it.”

  In his present form, Mark continued to stroke her hair loving the way she drew milk from the bottle just like a baby clutching at it to receive more of the nourishing liquid. A strong wave of protectiveness swept over Mark’s present version of himself. She needed him to come into her life. His decision not to help, Helena Wright had to change whether he approved of her profession or not. Fate had intervened.

  A presence behind him made him move away from the gentle scene on the bed and turn around. The present incarnation of Helena Wright was standing watching the vision with him. He frowned, not understanding how she could be present in his own glimpse into the future but she was there. She stared at him equally startled as though she had just seen him. Had she been there all the time? He was beginning to believe so even though they hadn’t seen each other until now. She opened her mouth to speak but her head suddenly turned to the side. He followed her eyes and saw a dark shadow appear. It swept towards Helena at speed and she turned and ran, her image disappearing and dissolving on the air along with the shadow pursuing her.

  The vision of the bedroom shimmered and dissolved in the same manner in front of Mark and he found himself still sitting in his chair holding his brandy as though nothing had happened. Momentarily confused and allowing his surroundings to come back clearly into view he stood and approached Lennox.

  “She’s in danger. You have to get me to her now.”

  Chapter 4

  Mark strode out of the lift behind Lennox on the floor of the MI5 building still dressed in his tuxedo.

  “I told Helena’s security team to keep her here until you arrived, just like you ordered,” Lennox said leading the way across the floor filled with desks, people and computer screens towards another door. The man grinned back at him. “I told them to use whatever means necessary to contain her, should she object.”

  Mark raised an eyebrow, a smile twitching at his lips.

  “She won’t like that.”

  “No, she won’t. A word of warning, Mark. Helena has one hell of a temper when riled. Don’t expect her to welcome your intervention and protection. Getting her to trust you is going to prove as monumentally difficult as it will to protect her from a psychic stalker.”

  “Let me worry about that. I have handled worse.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Around here they have nicknamed Helena, the Iron Lady.

  Mark smiled.

  “Trust me. I will handle her.”

  “I look forward to seeing you in action,” he grinned before his face turned serious. “We don’t want anything to happen to her. She is well-liked and loved. Helena is part of the family here. We don’t want to lose her.”

  He turned to open the door in front of him but was stopped when Mark rested his hand on top of his arm to halt him.

  “I promise I will keep her safe,” he told the man with conviction.

  Lennox studied him closely with curiosity for a moment.

  “You know, don’t you?”

  Mark glanced around to make sure no one was listening to their conversation.

  “Yes. I know just how much she means to you. But realise this, I won’t let your love and concern for her as a father get in the way of her protection. I suggest you continue to keep your identity secret from Helena. I want her focused. Her mind needs to be clear and objective not clouded with emotion in order for me to be able to keep her safe. Do I make myself clear?”

  Lennox’s grey eyes narrowed at him and a deep furrow formed in his forehead. Mark could feel his anger radiating towards him. For a brief moment, he thought Lennox was about to lash out like a father trying to protect his young and assert his authority. Mark prepared to stand his ground. There was no room for negotiation. But the older man slowly nodded and gave a pinched, “Yes. Perfectly.”

  Without another word, he led the way through Helena’s department to her office.

  Two men in suits stood guard outside Helena’s office door. They nodded in acknowledgement to Lennox.

  “She’s in her office. We did as you asked but be warned she isn’t happy about it,” one of them told him.

  “I can imagine. Stand aside.”

  Lennox took a breath and rapped on the door before entering. Mark felt excitement build inside him wondering how Helena would react to seeing him after the vision they had shared.

  He walked through the door to find the beautiful Helena sitting at her desk rifling through some papers and signing them. She wore some very sexy dark glasses and her hair was piled in a neat bun. True to form, she didn’t look very happy by the slight curl of annoyance perched on her scarlet lips.

  “Helena,” Lennox said gently trying to draw her attention.

  “What? I am busy. I’m getting caught up on a lot of paperwork seeing as you had me confined like a prisoner in my own office,” she snapped without looking up.

  “I did what I had to. Now, I want you to meet someone, your new Protection Officer, Mark Fox.”

  “I told you, I don’t need anyone to protect me,” she finished without looking up.

  Mark felt a sense of impatience. Helena was acting like a brat. He speculated she might feel her authority and position had been snubbed and she was fighting to keep control of her fear after the two attacks made on her life. Mark supposed being angry made her feel in control. This was going to be a tough assignment. She would have to learn quickly that she was no longer in control of her life and safety, he was. She would have to trust him to take care of her.

  “Come on, Helena, you know this is to protect you. We can’t take any more risks.” Lennox was about to lose his temper.

  Helena ignored him and turned over another paper to sign her elaborate creative signature on.

  “Helena,” Lennox tried again.

  “I am not interested. I have work to do. Leave me in peace.”

  Mark shook his head at Lennox when he glanced at him and opened his mouth to speak again. He motioned for him to leave the room. The man hesitated at first and then nodded as he headed towards the door. The moment they were alone Mark walked around the desk and reached over to take the papers away from her. He dropped them onto a chair near the window. Helena stood up in outrage and removed her glasses.

  “How dare you? Who the hell…”

  She stopped and stared at him, a growing realisation paling her delicate porcelain features even more.

  Mark stood in front of her, his arms folded and calmly said, “You know exactly who I am.”

  She appeared to need a moment to collect herself, making him feel amused.

  “Yes,” she answered slowly. “I do and I also know that I do not need nor want your help or protection,” she finished in a firm tone. “Why have you come?”

  “You know why. I need to be here. Believe me I didn’t want to at first, but whether you like it or not, fate has brought us together for a reason.”

  She eyed him quizzically.

  “Do you really believe in fate, Mr. Fox?”

  “I’d like to believe there is something out there that binds us all together and intervenes when necessary. I am guessing you don’t believe in it.”

  “I am not sure what I believe these days. I have seen too many things to pass them off with my scepticism. One thing I am sure of is that I don’t need your help. So, turn around and leave. I will deal with Lennox,” she informed him in her clear, crisp, English private school accent. “I do not need the help of any man.”

  Mark grinned. Helena Wright liked her authority and she was just the challenge he needed.

  “No. Not happening. You need someone to protect you, and both MI5 and the CIA, who you are working for, have insisted on my presence. Thy don’t want to lose their star and the only woman who can find Michael Rann.”

  “I haven’t got time for this. I have to find out where Rann and his Pura followers have planted bombs and the identity of the suicide bombers he has employed not just in London but in Washington, Paris and Hamburg. Th
ere may be more. He is organising this on a global scale. Apparently, I am the only psychic and remote viewer who has been able to get a connection with him, so the pressure is on and I have to stay centred. I do not have time for you,” she said in a regal dismissive tone.

  He leaned forward watching a frown begin to darken her pretty, pale features. He looked down at her making sure his tall frame dominated her.

  “I’m staying. Get used to it. From now on I am in charge.”

  “No chance. I am calling Lennox.”

  She bent to reach for the phone on her desk, but Mark clamped his hand over hers on the desk making her stop.

  “It isn’t going to do you any good. I was told you would be difficult, and I have been given carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to protect you.”

  The words rang familiar in his head as he spoke them.

  “That’s what you said in…” Helena’s voice trailed off.

  “The vision we shared. Yes, I know.”

  She tried to remove her hand out from under his, but Mark wasn’t letting her go anywhere.

  “Do you remember, what I did to you when you decided to disobey me?” he asked her in a dark, velvet whisper.

  He could see her breathing increase and noticed she could barely look at him. The frown had disappeared and now a light rosy blush had settled over her cheeks. She looked vulnerable and childlike and he was captivated even though he made damn sure it didn’t show. Right now, he was the stern paternal figure she needed to make her see sense. She was silent. Clearly, she had been hoping he wouldn’t mention the whole vision at all. Charmingly naïve as well.

  “Tell me,” he persisted, wanting her to acknowledge his authority over her own in the situation between them.

  Her eyes narrowed again as she looked down at her trapped hand.

  “I won’t let you go until you do.”

  “You spanked me like a child,” she hissed the words with contempt.

  “Yes, that is right. Do you want me to do it again?” he asked huskily looking directly into her eyes to show her he meant to carry out the action without hesitation if she continued to defy him.

  “How dare you. That vision was one of many possible futures. I’m sure you know that, and I have no intention of allowing you to spank me again or do all the other things you did to me.”

  “I don’t recall you fully objecting.” He grinned.

  “Let go of my hand, now.”

  Mark let go and shook his head. He moved around the desk while she tried to call Lennox and headed for the door. He turned the lock and started to pull down the blinds and closed them. Helena’s secretary gave him a startled look, but he simply put his finger to his lips and motioned for her to be quiet. She nodded and being discreet left the small anteroom. Next, he gestured for both armed guards to leave as well. They did so with reluctance but thankfully, it had been made plain he was leading the operation. Now, Helena’s Protection Officer was free to show her he meant business.

  Helena was speaking on the phone in an animated conversation. She had frowned at him once but was evidently in a heated discussion with Lennox who was giving her no ground. He closed the last blind and approached the desk with purpose. Without a word, he took the receiver out of Helena’s hand and replaced it. When she objected, he took hold of her wrist and moved his charge away from the chair.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

  “Teaching you a lesson about how our professional relationship is going to develop if you continue to resist my protection and the orders that come with it.”

  He’d kept his voice light punctuating it with a trace of humour so as not to frighten her too much. But she was about to receive a shock and there was nothing he could do about that. She had pushed him too far.

  Holding her wrist firmly as she struggled to pull away, all the while throwing every swear word she could find at him, he calmly sat down on the chair and with one hard tug pulled her body face down over his knees. She was one hell of a fighter and he had to use firm pressure on her back to keep her there. To compensate he moved her further over so that she was forced to place her palms on the floor to keep herself from falling over.

  “Good girl, something for you to concentrate on while I spank you,” he said with some amusement.

  He busied himself with his task by sweeping his palm over her nice, plump rump hidden from view underneath that sexy, tight, cream-colored summer suit of hers, loving the way it perfectly moulded her rump. In a business-like fashion he lifted the hem of her skirt and began to slide the skirt up her curved thighs.

  She wore no tights or stockings so it was going to make his job a lot easier although he would have delighted in seeing her in some nice sexy stockings he could have ripped away from her legs. She would look perfect in stockings.

  “Put me down,” she hollered at him. Now he could hear whimpers and the threat of tears come to her voice.

  “How can you do this to me?”

  “Because you need it. Don’t you remember our vision and just how much better the spanking made you feel?” he said rolling the skirt neatly at her waist, casting his eyes down over the chaste cotton white panties covering her backside. He raised one eyebrow. Again, he’d expected them to have at least been lace like they had in the vision. They made her look delicate, enchanting. For all her tough demeanour, Helena Wright was as vulnerable as a child just as he’d discovered in their vision.

  Mark tucked his fingers into the waistband of her panties and pulled them slowly and, if he was truthful, seductively down her thighs to expose her bare bottom for the spanking of her life. While also enjoying the feeling of the nestle of tight curls covering her vagina as they brushed against his trouser leg. After he had applied his discipline, he had no doubt she would be more amenable to his rules to preserve her life.

  Helena stopped struggling when he’d exposed her flesh. It was as though she had frozen in horror. She tried to reach one of her hands up to swat his hands away as he pulled her panties down to just above her calves. There was nothing she could hide from him now.

  Feverishly she tried to cover her bottom to prevent him from slapping it, but Mark wasn’t about to be so easily deterred.

  “You can’t escape this, Helena. Take it like a woman and learn from the experience, so I don’t have to repeat the punishment.” His humour was now gone. This would mark an important start in their relationship, the moment when Helena finally realised, she wasn’t alone in this anymore. That someone else was on her side and looking out for her without any conditions or expectations. Something he was sure she had never known before with anyone, including her family.

  He took hold of her arm farthest from his body and placed it on her lower back leaving her to balance with one hand. Holding her arm down flat against her back he used it like a rein to keep her firmly in position while he placed his large cool hand on one quivering pale buttock to calm her. He gave it a gentle squeeze, unable to resist as he listened to her whimper.

  “Relax. It will be over soon, and you and I will understand each other better. Believe it or not, Helena, I am trying to help you,” he said softly moving his hand gently over both of her bottom cheeks, to soothe and warm them for the punishment that lay ahead.

  Raising his hand, he wasted no more time in bringing the first slap crashing down on her tender, delicate, naked butt. It coloured quickly, in time with her first yelp. She moved restlessly but his strength was too much for her to overcome, she was completely helpless in his power. He coloured the second cheek with another strike beginning slowly at first until she caught her breath, which allowed him to pick up his rhythm. The third spank was delivered to the seat of her bottom and then each swat came firmly in quick succession.

  Mark expertly spanked her with a practiced hand. Lifting his hand high to curve it and catch the most tender, palest parts of her bare bottom and eventually the backs of her thighs until they stung with a hot red colour. Helena’s tears flowed abundantly, her body bucking
and rising against his leg with each slap. It wasn’t long before he felt the telltale signs of wetness from her pussy caress his tuxedo leg, making him smile with triumph. So, despite her protestations, Helena was confirming the vision and revealing she was aroused by being spanked like a child over his knee.

  Chapter 5

  Helena felt her body hang limp over Mark’s knee when he finally finished exerting his discipline. Her eyes were swollen with the tears she’d shed feeling every strike of his hand sharply sting. Helena had never been spanked in her life, not even as a child. Her punishment had been of a different nature.

  Raised by a bitter, resentful, narcissistic mother, without a father, and with a family that ran around making sure the woman’s every whim and need was met, Helena was shut out and used as a scapegoat by her mother for everything that went wrong. Helena grew up alone, constantly placed second to her golden child brother who used lies and every trick in the book to take all of their mother’s attention. Childhood had been lonely and full of criticism, longing and deep hurt. Even to this day, she always felt abandoned and any relationship she had embarked on with a man had been a repeat performance of the controlling one she had with her mother and family. The only true unconditional love she had ever experienced was from her maternal grandmother and grandfather who doted on her. Now that they were gone, she had become estranged from her mother unable to bear the controlling behaviour and constant jibes of her inadequacy backed up by her brother. Now, she lived alone and isolated feeling too hurt and afraid to do anything else. This way she could be in control and use the anger she had repressed inside her for all these years to keep herself together and forge ahead. Now this man, this infuriating younger, handsome, dominant man was storming into her life and calling her out for it, demanding she change and accept his authority as though she were a child all over again. She hated him for it. But if that was true why did a part of her feel relieved despite the humiliation and hot burning pain she was now enduring from her spanking?