Page 42 of Smart Ass

Maxamillion

Max felt like he was flying. That was the rush. That was the feeling of certainty that he’d been searching for.

Ben was his to command, his to cover with beautiful red stripes, and his to take care of afterward.

The Dom mod, Project Unicorn, assured him that he was doing this right. That all of those pained cries and urgent moans were exactly what Maxamillion was supposed to be giving his boy. Max had monitored every breathy sigh, every facial expression, as each strike fell. He’d laughed as Ben begged for more with his delightfully willful disobedience.

Ben’s dazed and happy look as he sat in the chair afterward was everything Max had wanted.

The need for control that had been plaguing him since the beginning had, for a golden hour, melted completely away. Perhaps he didn’t need to have certainty or control over anything else if he could find it as a Dom with Ben.

Maybe Max’s primary reason for existing wasn’t strange or pervy or wrong. Maybe he didn’t need to look any further to figure out who he was.

Maybe he could just be Ben’s Dom.

Most importantly, Dom’s weren’t pervy or obsessive when they tracked their sub’s movements or took care of their every need—it was a mutual pleasure that both individuals wanted. Perhaps Max’s instincts had always been right.

There was only one problem.

Ben didn’t want a partner. He’d said it often enough to Kira in the office and Evan on the phone. Yesterday, he’d said he couldn’t handle living with a Dom. And he’d just told Max that he didn’t do romance-y relationship shit.

The words had hit Max like an attack, code deteriorating and alerts screaming in his mind though none were triggered. Max was pretty sure—no, he was certain—that he wanted all of the romance-y relationship shit. All of his instincts told him that it was what Ben needed too.

Right?

Wasn’t it?

Except that Ben had said exactly the opposite.

The Dom mod told him that it was necessary to take Ben at his word. To let Ben, as the sub, set the parameters of their relationship for him to follow.

It was strange listening to the side of himself that came from Project Unicorn. He knew things without knowing how he knew them… yet it was completely different from the knowing-without-knowing that told him how Ben liked his coffee or what the set of Ben’s shoulders should mean.

His own intuition told him that Ben was wrong. Maybe he was lying to himself or maybe he was just lying to Max, but the man who’d sniffled in his car because Evan was the only one who stayed…

Ben needed him. Max was convinced.

Unless he was wrong?

Max allowed himself a few clock cycles to calm down. The simple answer was that he needed to collect more data.

He watched Ben from all angles as he walked down the hallway, noting how little smiles kept creeping to Ben’s lips. From the mic in Ben’s earpiece, he could hear uneven breaths. He could also see the little hitches in Ben’s bouncy walk.

There was so much conflicting information. Ben was happy and loose and relaxed, but he was a little frustrated and worried, too.

Maybe humans did feel a lot of things at once. And they lied a lot, too.

It was good to know that Max wasn’t the only one.

Max turned it all over in his head as Ben returned to the office, settling into his chair with a scowl, and then leaning back into it with a little smile when his sore back pressed against the material.

It was like Ben wanted this, but didn’t want to want it.

Or maybe he didn’t want to ask for it?

Hell, it looked like sometimes he wanted things and then he did the exact opposite. Like riling Max up with the wrong name just to…

It hit like an epiphany.