One month. Olivia didn’t know how long it had been, but he did. When Talon wasn’t with her, sleeping, or working, he was watching her. She didn’t know about the cameras and he had no plans to tell her, just like he had no plans to ever tell her about the GPS chip he’d implanted in her the first time he’d captured her, or the mirroring app on her phone and how he’d sabotaged her job, or just how far he’d gone the past year to prevent her dates and hookups…all for her.

Her period was due soon. According to the health records he’d found on her phone, as well as the info in her period tracking app, she was due for her quarterly period, all thanks to the birth control shot she was on. He’d already had a good idea beforehand, but confirming and getting accurate dates was important. Everything about her was sacred.

What Talon hadn’t known was when she was due for her next dose, which was sooner than he’d like it to be—in three months. Either he’d have to figure out how to get his hands on a shot, take her into a clinic, or come up with a new plan.

Just get her pregnant.

He shook his head—he kept having that thought. The image of her with a round belly, his child inside of her, always made him ache with longing. But he knew Olivia wasn’t ready for a child. She wanted to graduate, which meant waiting at least a year.

Talon smiled. Actually…the timing is almost perfect.

----------------------------------------

A few days later, Olivia woke up to find red spots on the sheets.

“Talon, you fucker,” he heard her say through the camera, “you don’t even give me underwear. Am I just supposed to free-bleed for a week?” She sat up and laughed to herself. “You’d probably like that, you sick bastard.” Olivia grabbed several tissues from the nightstand and made do as she waddled to the bathroom, muttering, “This probably wouldn’t stop you from fucking me, either. You fucking….fucker!”

He grinned. One thing he’d discovered early on was Olivia’s vulgar mouth when she was alone. It made him love her even more—every time she cursed him, every time she said his name made his heart flutter. It was like hearing a cute, angry hamster yell and swear. Who wouldn’t love that? She was simply adorable.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Back to the task at hand. It was time to deploy the care package.

Twenty minutes later, Talon headed down to the basement, through the decoy room, to Olivia’s room. She was sitting on the bed, a towel tucked between her legs.

“Sorry about your white sheets and your white towel,” she shot at him, full of sarcasm. “They’re a little bloody.” Mmm, feisty!

“I’ll take care of that,” he told her, and she frowned. “Here you go. Everything you should need.”

“How did you know…” Olivia trailed off as she eyed the white underwear (of course), pads without wings, pads with wings, tampons, menstrual cups, chocolates, snacks, and…chicken wings. He watched her face as she made the connection, as she pressed her mouth into a line, trying not to laugh. “You saw the pads with wings video.”

Who hasn’t seen the video of the man coming home with a package of pads and a takeout box of chicken wings, adamantly saying, “Pads with wings! Just like you asked!” followed by his woman saying, “No, pads with wings. With wings!”

“I thought it would cheer you up. Here.” He also gave her a bag with a heating pad, some comfy (white) loungewear, and a stack of manga.

This time, Olivia couldn’t contain her gasp. Talon had intentionally withheld anything mentally stimulating, forcing her to rely on him for the past month for every single thing, but now was the time to introduce carefully curated materials that would shape her perception of him and their relationship.

He wanted her to see him as the good guy, her savior. Her everything. Not very long ago, she had fantasized about being kidnapped and obsessed over by a guy like him, but the reality of the situation had scared her. That was fair. So he’d resorted to Plan B—keeping her captive in the basement bedroom for however long it would take for her to love him.

The stack of manga he’d just given her included stories similar to their real-life situation, with the female lead happily accepting the male lead in the end.

Talon just had to wait for Olivia to accept him, however long it took. He gazed down at her, his heart full of love and affection for the woman currently digging into a bag of chocolates with one hand and opening a volume of manga with the other.

Yeah. He'd wait forever if he had to.