The woman simply looked at him without answering, if the twitch at the corner of her eyes was not taken into consideration.
"Alright, you don't have to answer."
Alex shook his head, along with the water dripping off his hair, and focused back on the dark female figure. He ignored the repeated twitch at the corner of the dark eyes his nonchalance had caused, and didn't show any panic. If anything, there was some appreciation in his eyes as he appraised the curves of the woman, before he nodded to himself, and commented as he focused on her chest:
"Not bad. Almost as good as Caitlin, but I will have to try hands-on to determine the winner between the two of you. Though, I don't think you will win. You might lose by a small margin. A very small margin."
Though he smiled comfortingly, and he emphasized how narrow the margin would be, he only got the opposite effect, or maybe the right effect. Seeing the woman's chest rise and fall faster and at steeper angles, he laughed out loud:
"No need to be angry. You are the one who intruded into my home in the middle of the night, and…"
He lowered his head to look at his restraints, then added with a smirk:
"...you seem to be into BDSM, though you are very unprofessional about it. Anyway, I don't really mind. So, a lap dance first or a striptease? What are we starting with?"
The suggestive smile he ended his words with, and that gleam in his eyes only waiting for her to start, made the woman breathe in sharply, all her previous nervousness and hesitation melting away in the fading background to let something else surface.
Forcefully exhaling, she lowered her voice and let out what was more like a tigress's growl:
"You–"
Alex clicked his tongue with a disapproving headshake and commented:
"Not enough ferocity. Lacking in depth too. You sound like a cat instead of a tigress. You ought to be quite interesting in bed, right?"
"Hurgh!"
The mysterious woman in black choked, and asked, her teeth obviously grinding against each other:
"Alex. Lenner. Do you even realize the situation you are in?"
Alex's smirk turned into a smile, casual, almost amused as he replied:
"Of course. I'm tied to a chair in my own bedroom by someone apparently very inexperienced who is attempting a break-in for the first time."
The dark eyes across from him widened slowly, probably at the same speed his words were processed in. At last, they opened to the limit, and her mouth opened behind the mask, but without managing to let out any sound.
Alex's smirk came back sharper, carrying along the same amused disdain his eyes were showing at the woman's reaction.
"Why so surprised? Your clothes are too new. It is smart to avoid anything with your own scent, but the best would be to avoid anything distinctive. And your hair. It is black, isn't it? A black wig, with a few strands exposed to divert attention from the true color of your hair. And your eyes… I don't even want to talk about them. Just, try to find lenses of better quality next time. Do you want me to continue, miss kitty cat?"
The mysterious woman's bosom heaved up and down a few times before she managed to force some semblance of calm back into her boiling mind. She tried. She really tried, but in the end, she failed to swallow the mockery. With all the loathing she could muster, she spat out:
"You really are worse than the rumors say."
Alex raised an eyebrow with interest:
"Oh, and what do those rumors say about me? That I am a rich heir? A playboy? A woman connoisseur? A prized bachelor?"
The mysterious woman had to take a deep breath first, before exhaling forcefully:
"Alex Lenner, where is the box? Give it to me. I will leave immediately and we will never meet again. Believe me when I say I don't ever want to meet again. So–"
"So, who sent you?"
The woman froze, while he paused, then seemingly having thought of something, continued while chewing that thought with a gleam in his brown eyes:
"Do you even know who sent you?"
His eyes conveyed the interest he was feeling across, and that, more than anything, pricked the woman under her skin, because, indeed, she knew nothing about the one who was behind everything that had happened to her that forced her to obey the messages of unknown origin.
She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, the irritation inside had faded a lot. What remained was the desire to be done here as soon as possible and go back to put an end to everything and return to her life without a suffocating sword hanging over her head anymore.
Seriously looking at Alex, she repeated her question again:
"Where is the box, Mr Lenner?"
Mr Lenner?
Alex couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at those words. He looked at the mysterious woman in black up and down, the interest in his eyes growing stronger. Still, he smiled, looking every bit like the charismatic villain of a story, and blew on the fire that just calmed down in the heart across:
"While it is said 'ask, and it shall be given', I prefer 'seek, and you shall find'. As for knocking, let's not bother going back to that, shall we? Anyway, you didn't knock before coming in, did you?"
That smile, that face, that look. For the first time, she understood the feeling of wanting to punch someone just because of their face. She had never been keen on violence, but as her chest rose and fell, she clenched her fists and fought hard to restrain herself, especially as that smile grew wider, that face glowed brighter, and that look became more and more insufferable.
Gritting her teeth further and tightening the clench of her fists, she breathed like a forge's bellows, before suddenly relaxing. She gave Alex a deep look, then walked out of the room, leaving him there alone. Silence descended inside, as it should have been at such an hour of the night.
Alex looked at the glow of the round moon which just passed the peak of its journey, then down at the rope restraining him to his reading chair. At that moment, his female captor came back. She came to stand before him, and slammed the knife block she had come back with on top of the cabinet below the flat screen on her left, with force, while fixing her eyes on him, with her back straight.
*Bang!*
And she just so happened to hit right where Alex had patted the top of the cabinet a few hours earlier.
*Click!*