37
CHOKE ME HARDER
CILLIAN
“Why did you wake me up so early?” Emma grumbled, meeting me outside her room and rubbing her eyes. “It’s the weekend.”
I hummed, checking her attire, and nodded in approval. “Good. This will do. Come on, we have a lot to do today.”
“What?” she whined, but her footsteps followed me downstairs. It was six in the morning and the sun hadn’t risen yet. The weather was cold, so I’d have to train her in her personal gym room. I had been setting it up every evening for the past few weeks between guarding her at school, giving her orgasms at night and wondering why the fuck her stalker hadn’t made a move. Yet.
It was making me uneasy that he still hadn’t showed up. Yes, she was still getting creepy DMs in her social media with lots of fatphobic comments, but none of them were like the stalker who had texted her with a burner phone, giving her a gift that night.
“Why are we here?” Her voice was dull. She crossed her arms and looked at me with narrowed eyes, entering the room with padded floors and all the expensive strength training machines. I had been using the gym every morning before taking Emma to school.
“To make you stronger,” I said and pointed at her to stand in front of me in the center of the room. I had asked her to wear gym clothes, but she was grumbling so I readied a legging with a sports bra for her. Along with being her personal bodyguard, I was now working as her personal maid.
“I am strong,” Emma said, standing across from me. “What now?”
“Your hair.”
“What about it?”
I sighed and walked around her, gathering her soft locks in my hand. “They will get in the way. I’m braiding it.”
“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked, her voice soft as I slowly weaved through her hair.
I shrugged. “I used to help my amma with her hair when I was a kid.”
“Oh, where is she now?”
“Seoul,” I said, tying an elastic to secure her braid. “She doesn’t like American food, so she stays in South Korea.”
“You must miss her.”
Her face was sad and eyes were full of emotion when she whispered those words.
“Yes. Sometimes I miss her,” I admitted, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Even though her mother wasn’t maternal, Emma was close to her. Or else she wouldn’t look so sad.
“Anyway, how are you going to make me stronger?” she asked, raising a brow at me.
“I’m going to teach you how to defend yourself,” I said evenly. “When the job ends, I want you to be able to protect yourself, okay?”
“When the job ends?” Emma frowned.
“Yes. When we catch the stalker.” I cleared my throat and avoided looking into her eyes. “Now stand in this position. Push your weight onto the floor and tighten your core.”
She followed my movements, and I asked her to look at the mirror to see her stance and corrected it, lightly touching her back and stomach.
“We will start with punches, kicks, blocks and then end with stretching,” I informed her when she raised her arms, her hands in fists.
“Can’t I just use a pepper spray or a taser gun?”
I rolled my eyes. Emma shrieked when I took her by surprise and threw her on the padded floor with my hand around her throat and the other pinning her hands. I straddled her waist so her kicking legs were useless.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was so rude that I didn’t wait for you to get your pepper spray out of your bag,” I crooned as she glared at me, still trying to fight me and trying to get her hands out of my firm grip. “Stop squirming. If someone wanted to hurt you, they would hit your head or choke you until you were unconscious and take you somewhere else.”