Hard Lessons (Stepbrother Professor Stand-Alone BDSM Romance) Read Online Free Page A

trying to figure him out.
    They finished eating, and with the plates still on the table, Mitch reached over to see what Jessica had written in the notebook. His eyes glanced down the page, and he nodded. “Okay,” he said, wiping his lips with a napkin, “explain to me how to find centrifugal force.”
    He held the notebook at an angle so that Jessica couldn’t see.
    “Um…” Jessica didn’t remember one single element of the equation, even though she had just copied it down twenty times. “I—I guess I wasn’t really paying attention.” She tried to smile, to play it off as something that happens sometimes, but Mitch was not amused.
    He set the notebook down, and sat back to assess Jessica, folding his arms across his chest so that his biceps bulged underneath his shirt. He shook his head. “Well,” he said, dropping his arms, “I guess we’re going to have to do something to help you concentrate.”
    He stood up. “Follow me.” He had the textbook under his arm, and walked out of the room. Jessica glanced back at the plates left on the table, and followed her stepbrother down the dark hall of the house toward the bedrooms.
    Mitch stopped at his room first, and Jessica waited at the door as he got something out of a drawer of his bedside bureau. Then they continued down the hall to Jessica’s room. Mitch flipped on the light, and they both stepped inside.
    The room was just as Jessica had left it. The twin bed had been made with the covers tucked in neatly, and the pens and items of his desk were organized and dusted.
    “Go to your desk,” Mitch ordered in a gruff voice.
    Jessica walked over, looking back over her shoulder nervously.
    “Sit down.”
    Jessica sat down, and Mitch set the textbook on the desk, placing it open in front of her.
    “You’re going to study here for the rest of the night. And,” he said, pulling out a bundle of rope from behind his back, “we’re going to make sure you don’t have any opportunity for distraction.”
    Jessica stared at the rope with wide eyes. “What?” she asked, backing the chair away.
    “Give me your hands,” Mitch ordered. “Put them behind your back.” When Jessica remained frozen, Mitch’s tone softened. “Listen, Jessica. I’m not leaving you here overnight. But from what you’ve said, you can’t control yourself. I’m just taking away the temptation to—” He thought for a moment, choosing a new phrase. “Of idle hands.”
    Slowly, Jessica relented. She put her hands around the back of the chair. Mitch bent down, and started winding the rope around them. The twine of the rope was smooth, and Mitch looped it around her wrists so that, while she couldn’t escape, it wouldn’t cut off her circulation.
    Then Mitch pushed the chair to the desk, and turned Jessica toward the textbook. He pointed at the equation for velocity over time, and said, “I’ll be doing the dishes. When I’m done, I expect you to have this memorized.”
    Jessica nodded, and mumbled, “Yes, sir.”
    Mitch left the room, and Jessica turned to the open doorway. Then she turned back to the desk.
    She wondered if this was legal, tying up your own sister. She was an adult now, being over eighteen, and she had given her permission; Jessica guessed that that made it okay in the eyes of the law. And the phrase
consenting adults
passed through her mind, and started an entirely new string of associations.
    She shook her head and leaned down in the chair to focus on the textbook. This position strained the rope around her wrists, and she tugged on them, testing their strength.
    Yes, secure. Mitch had even laced them through the back of the chair so that she couldn’t simply stand up and walk away.
    Well, she thought, just as well. Maybe now she’d be able to study.
    But as she looked at the equations, there was something that was bothering her about all of this, something nagging at her memory to be reevaluated. Often she’d remember a line from a novel she had read,