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Chapter One

Colby

“Bet you can’t wait to be free,” my sister, Maddie, said, her face frozen in mid-smirk thanks to our janky Wi-Fi connection. “No more essays, no more cafeteria mystery meat, and—” she wagged her eyebrows, “—no more ‘ Daddy, please may I have another stipend.’ ”

I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair, ignoring the stupid pang in my chest at the “Daddy” comment as I worked to keep my voice dry and snarky, the way she’d expect. “Wow. That’s exactly how I say it, too. You’ve really captured my essence.”

She grinned, so mission accomplished. “Colby Morgan, Professional Sugar Baby?. You should put that on your LinkedIn after graduation.”

“You’re a menace,” I said, smiling through the sudden tightness in my chest.

Because yeah. Technically, she wasn’t wrong. My time as a sugar baby—more specifically, as real estate developer Grant Ellison’s sugar baby—was coming to a close. In just a few weeks, I’d be graduating from Emerson College, and our agreement would expire right along with my student email address.

No extensions. No renegotiations. And a potential big-ass bonus for good behavior, according to our contract.

His rules, not mine.

When I’d signed it, I’d been too desperate to care about much more than the monthly stipend he’d be paying me for the pleasure of my “companionship,” but now…

I shut that thought down fast. There was no point. I’d signed the damn thing, and it wasn’t like Grant would ever ask to change the agreement since he was the one who’d written it.

Or, I guessed, his lawyers probably had.

I didn’t know the particulars and didn’t need to. All I knew was that a friend-of-a-friend had made some offhand joke at a party about one of those “sugar daddy dating platforms” a few months ago, and I’d laughed it off like everyone else had.

Until I checked my bank balance later that night and realized that, come spring semester, I was screwed.

I’d lost my scholarship, I had no loan options left, and even though it wasn’t my fault—I’d done every single thing right through all four years here at Emerson—all I had to show for it was a polite but firm message from the financial aid office telling me they “deeply regretted the administrative oversight.”

In other words, they’d fucked up, they were sorry, but they were still hanging me out to dry with just one semester to go before graduation.

So, after drinking myself silly and crying on the phone to my sister about how unfair it all was, I’d decided to check out the sugar daddy site.

Then I signed up. Made a profile. Tried not to vomit.

And then came… Grant .

My heart gave the same little thump it always did when I thought of him, but I ignored it and nodded along as Maddie continued teasing me about how relieved I must be that I was so close to freedom.

Just four more weeks, and I’d be done with school and done with Grant, too.

Before responding to his initial message, I’d done my due diligence. I’d googled “sugar daddy arrangements” like my life depended on it—which, in a way, it kind of did since I’d be well and truly screwed if I couldn’t finish my degree.

And… wow. That search? It led me down a whole rabbit hole of kink sites and blogs that had left my mind reeling, trying to figure out what the hell I might be walking into. Apparently, I was about as “vanilla” as they come, and the term “Daddy” had... Uh, let’s just call them implications.

I did my research, though. I learned that for some guys, having a sugar daddy wasn’t just about money. A Daddy could also provide structure, caretaking, rules, discipline—sometimes even praise.

The idea had made me feel squirmy and weird at first. I was a grown-ass man, and the idea of calling either of my past boyfriends, or even a hook-up, “Daddy” felt a little bit silly and a whole lot obscene.

So being a bit curious about it as I fell further and further down that rabbit hole had me seriously wondering if maybe there was something wrong with me.

But also... reading about how it could be made me feel kind of seen?

And the idea of being cared for that way, a way I honestly hadn’t even known I wanted and could totally justify for a while since I really did need the money to get through my last semester of school, had tipped the balance for me.

I’d replied to Grant’s message. I’d been both terrified and excited, but I really had thought I knew what I was signing up for.

But during our first real conversation, when we sat down and went over the agreement together, Grant had gently corrected me. Told me that while yes, he liked companionship and intimacy, our arrangement wouldn’t be that kind of dynamic.

He wasn’t going to be my “Daddy,” just my sugar daddy. It would make him happy to help me financially for a little while, and he’d never expect or ask for more than was in the contract.

We’d keep things clear and simple… and I’d never have to call him Daddy.

I’d nodded, smiled, said “of course”—and been weirdly, privately disappointed.

Because even though I couldn’t admit it out loud, even to myself at the time, I kind of wanted the other thing. Not all of it, maybe. No thank you to being bent over and spanked or disciplined the way I’d read about in a few of those blogs.

But the way it had felt to read about someone being taken care of, given rules, reassured, praised, and supported?

No point pining for stuff that wasn’t going to happen, though. The actual arrangement with Grant was simple.

Two scheduled date nights a week, his choice of venue and activity. No overnight stays, ever. No emotional messiness. Optional physical intimacy, in other words, sex, but not penetrative.

That bit had made me squirm when we reviewed the contract together, not that I was a virgin or a prude.

Grant had been so damn sweet, though, telling me it truly was optional, that he’d be happy just to enjoy my company and conversation if I preferred.

And that he’d specifically prohibited anal—uh, I meant, “penetrative sex”—because it so often could lead to confusion about emotional intimacy.

So I definitely knew where I stood with him, no matter how nice he was to me. And yeah, we had done other stuff, the hottest, best sex of my life even without actually fucking, because nnnnnnngh , he was just…

Sexy didn’t even cover it. I hadn’t even realized I had a thing for older guys before starting things up with Grant, but at 6’2”, with a broad-shouldered, commanding presence that drew attention whenever he walked into a room, thick, dark hair with streaks of silver at the temples, deep, steady hazel eyes that made me feel like the center of the universe each and every time he looked at me?

How could I not want to blow him… along with any and every other thing he’d let me do.

Or wanted to do to me.

“Colby, Colbs, big brother of mine,” Maddie said, snapping her fingers on the screen to get my attention. “Helloooooo, quit daydreaming about the future and focus on your favorite sister!”

“You’re my only sister,” I reminded her automatically, wincing a little at her offhand comment about the future.

I was in no rush, but it was rushing toward me anyway.

“Hey,” Maddie said, her eyes suddenly lighting up. “We should have a joint graduation party!”

I huffed out a laugh. “You’re not even graduating yet.”

She was nineteen, two years younger than me and with two more years of school still ahead of her over at UMass Amherst.

She grinned. “Well, I’m still looking forward to being done for the summer just as much as you are.”

“Yeah,” I said, forcing a laugh. “I’m… really looking forward to being done. I guess we could do a party back home or something, Mads, if that’s what you really want.”

She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. For a second, I thought the picture had frozen again, but no. It was worse. She was studying me, it wasn’t the shitty internet connection.

“I know you are happy to be graduating,” she finally said, voice softening. “But you’re not actually looking forward to the end, are you? Did you catch feelings for your sugar daddy?”

“What? No.” I scoffed, immediately looking away from the screen and fiddling with the drawstring on my hoodie. “Don’t be weird. It’s just a mutually beneficial financial arrangement, remember? We’ve got that in writing.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t sound convinced.

Because the truth?

The truth was, there were rules on paper—but none of them covered the way Grant remembered I hate loud restaurants, or how he always had ginger ale in his fridge because I’d once mentioned I get queasy when I’m anxious.

There was no clause about how he looked at me when I was talking like I was the only voice in the world he wanted to hear.

No fine print about how he hadn’t minded when I’d started texting him about my stupid little wins—test scores, finished designs, random stuff I would’ve sent Mads a year ago but now wanted to tell him all about.

Tell him, and then bask in the praise he always heaped on me for every success.

And it wasn’t just that, either. He’d started doing the other stuff too—little things, without fanfare, that weren’t exactly prohibited by our contract but weren’t specified in it, either. Things that felt more like… well, like the kind of “Daddy” stuff he’d said we weren’t doing.

Reminding me to eat. Checking that I’d slept. Pulling me gently back into focus when I started spinning out.

Stuff that made me feel... good. Safe. Wanted. Cared for.

Worst of all, in my head, I’d actually started calling him “Daddy.”

Quietly. Secretly. Never out loud. Never to his face. Always with a tiny flutter in my guts that made me feel both a little bit ashamed and a whole lot needy.

But if I let myself think about that too hard, I’d fall apart.

So I didn’t.

My sister, on the other hand, was like a dog with a bone, and now that she’d sniffed out a hint of the truth—because yeah, of course I’d caught feelings; he was wonderful —she wasn’t letting it go.