I spend every night alone, and I barely sleep. Does Lolita miss her Black Fox? Is she wondering where he is, if he’s discarded her after their moment of passion? Is she breaking her heart over him? I rub the heel of my hand over my own aching heart in the darkness, needing as much as wanting my Little Lo. On the fifteenth night after the ball, I work myself up into such a frenzy that I’m pacing up and down the bedroom at one in the morning, breathing hard and growling under my breath. She’s so close. So close. I ache from head to toe for her. My sweet Lolita with her luscious mouth and her pink velvet pussy. I remember the way she clung to me, her fingers digging into my shoulders. She needs her Black Fox, too. The memory of her trusting eyes as I choked her with my belt breaks me.
I run to the wardrobe and yank out the carefully concealed bag. It’s the work of a moment to change into him, and then I’m swinging out the window into the night.
The ramparts of the castillo are crumbling, but I feel my way in the darkness around to Lolita’s balcony. There’s a sheer drop below into the vines. I wonder what would happen if I fell and Lolita and Valeria found my body in the morning. Would Lolita scream as the mask came off and she realized who her darling Black Fox was all this time? Or would she sob over my body, broken and battered by this curse?
Her room is silent and dark when I reach it. The night is warm and her balcony door is open. I steal inside, my booted footfalls soft on the carpet. The breeze lifts the gossamer hangings of her canopied bed, and I see her, a dark-haired princess amid a cloud of pillows and white sheets.
How lovely she is. How much I want to care for her, my Little Lo. As the Black Fox, my heart is filled with tenderness. I slip up onto the bed and gather her into my arms. Even my lust is tender, and I coax her awake with soft kisses. As her eyelashes flutter, I wonder if I will need to clamp a hand over mouth to prevent a startled scream, but she’s not afraid of the stranger in the shadows. She smiles up at him.
“Black Fox,” she whispers, arching her back and pressing her breasts up toward me. Her nipples are tight little buds beneath her thin nightgown. “Black Fox, I knew you’d come.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” I say in a low voice, and press my mouth against hers. Her lips are like cherries, bursting with sweetness. “I’ve done nothing but think of you, mi niñita.”
“Have you, daddy?” she moans, wrapping her silken thighs around me. “Will you touch me?”
“Everywhere,” I murmur against her mouth between kisses.
“Will you love me?”
“With all my heart.”
“Will you…” She hesitates for a moment, her eyes filled with uncertainty. Even fear. She needn’t be afraid of me. I would never hurt her.
“Will you…punish me?” Her hands slide down my chest and stroke the leather belt at my hips. “Will you hurt me, Black Fox? Will you tell me I’m your filthy little girl, and stripe my skin with thick red marks?”
I watch her pale fingers undo my belt, the buckle clinking gently. I seize her hands and plant them above her head. “Lolita, no. Why do you want that?”
She bites her lip, and whispers, “Someone told me I deserve it, and I think he’s right.”
How vulnerable she is, pinned beneath me, her arms above her head. How easy it would be for me to do anything I want to her.
Anything at all.
I leap from the bed, horror plunging through me. She wants him. She craves him. If I unleash him now, what if I can’t reel him back in? What if he takes over everything, and I can never find sanctity as the Black Fox ever again?
What if she learns to loves him more than she loves me? I look down at her soft, prone body, so fresh and unmarked, her eyes filled with need for someone I was so sure that she hated.
Lolita sits up, bewildered. “Black Fox?”
Without another word, I run from the room. Not out through the balcony doors, the way I came in.
Through her bedroom door.
I don’t realize my mistake until I’m back in the guest bedroom, my back pressed against the door and my chest heaving. I wait, unable to move, waiting for Lolita’s scream to pierce the night. For her to wake the whole castle with shouts that Zacarias is the Black Fox; Zacarias has been taking advantage of her; Zacarias is a foul beast who must be rousted from the castillo; Zacarias must die.