Page 40 of Allure

And I have to try twice more to get him off me, and this time, I only simulate going to knee him.

“That’s how you do it. Only you try to knee them as hard as you tried to knee me originally.”

“That’ll be easy. I just have to pretend they’re you. Shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Cute. Next?”

I turn so my back is to him, and he grabs onto my shoulders.

“Oh, I was going to have you choke me from behind.”

“You really do want me to choke you, huh?”

I close my eyes. I don’t know if this is all a colossal mistake, but I have to consider ways that guys will attack women to come up with self-defense moves to counter them. Guys will choke women, and I just have to get over myself.

If only that was easier to actually do.

I actually don’t get off on being choked. I don’t like having hands on my throat at all. I’m just making dark jokes to try to cope with my own unease about the whole thing.

Maybe because I say nothing, but Declan stops, and he slides his right arm around my throat.

“How do you get out of this?” he asks.

“From what I saw…” I try to dig my fingers into his arm to pull it away from my throat so that a real attacker wouldn’t be able to constrict my breathing.

“Not bad so far. Now what?”

“Now…”

I turn to the side and bend over.

Nothing happens.

“Um…”

“In the video, the guy went down.”

“Yeah, what video?”

“On Youtube. I was trying—”

“You can find some great intel on there and some bullshit. You have to bend lower to do that move, but I don’t like it. Being bent over so that your back is entirely flat? No. If the guy has his other arm free, he’s just going to yank on your hair to pull you back up, or else he’ll try to walk away with you.”

"Walk away with me?" I straighten some to try to look at him, but Declan is walking, and since his arm is around my neck still, I have no choice but to scramble and walk backward with him, so he doesn't choke me.

“See what I mean? Don’t worry about videos. I know you don’t have a lot of moves in your arsenal yet, so just play around. Try something. If it works, awesome. We move on. If not, I’ll tell you it sucks.”

“And not bother to give me a suggestion on how to fix it.”

“Nope,” he says cheerfully. “This is all you, Boo. You do you.”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t care. Let’s get this done and over with.”

“Got. Hot date?”

“Thought I told you not to worry about me.”

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