Page 69 of Smart Ass

It made him want to giggle, but he was too sleepy, so he just smiled instead.

“Beautiful boy,” Max murmured, clearly on a second channel because he was still humming.

And Ben… okay, he didn’t totally hate it. He wasn’t really that attractive. More like a muppet, he figured, with his crazy hair. He was kind of scrawny but… Okay, fine. He liked it when Maxamillion said it.

But only Maxamillion. No one else was allowed to say that weird shit to him.

Max just didn’t know better yet.

Anyway, Ben was still on the get all the Max you can have while he’s still interested kick, so he wasn’t going to complain, right?

He let his eyes slip shut, curling up in his happy bubble of Max snuggles and sleepy sleeps.

One of the bots slipped an arm under the blanket and tugged at his wrist, but Ben grumbled at it. The bot tugged again.

“Sleeps.” He thought it was a pretty good argument.

“Not yet, darling boy.” Max’s voice wrapped around him, like the trickling of water in a dark cave. Then he started harmonizing with himself, two deep, golden voices intertwined.

Ben was too content to even object when the bot pulled on his wrist again, and allowed it to have its way.

Whatever Max wanted, he could have.

Max was in charge.

Max was magical.

Ben felt something close around his wrist. Not a robotic pincer (which he now knew exceedingly well), but more like a wide bracelet with something on it. It tightened and pinched for a moment, then smoothed out.

He blinked his eyes open.

“It’s a watch,” Max told him, his other voices still dancing through their calming melody. “It’s waterproof, so you never need to take it off.”

Ben studied the watch. The band looked like leather, in a deep chocolate brown and just as soft, but clearly some upscale synthetic that was just as good. The face showed a digital image of an analog clock and two other circular outputs that he’d investigate later—barometric pressure or something?

It was exactly the watch he would have bought himself. Wide and masculine, yet whimsical and scientific.

He’d probably lose it within a week.

“You won’t lose it, because you’re never going to take it off,” Max told him, like he was reading his mind, but the message made Ben’s heart thump. “Do you understand me, Ben? You’ll always wear it so I can hear you and read your pulse. This is my claim on you.”

Max turned Ben’s arm until he could see the engraving along the top edge. It wasn’t engraved a B or C for Ben’s initials, but with an M.

Did Max understand the significance of that gesture? Was this like a collar?

It certainly felt like it, the heavy security of it a reminder of Maxamillion’s absolute right to chain Ben up and take over his body. It was like a handcuff that Ben could wear all the time.

No, that Ben would wear all the time. Because Ben might be an asshole and a brat, but he was never, ever going to take this off.

This was definitely Max asserting his claim as Ben’s Dom. Not just while they were scening, but all the time.

“Alright, baby?” Max asked, like he wasn’t sure if he’d overstepped.

Ben gave an abrupt, tiny nod of agreement. Then he pulled his arm, with the precious watch, back under the blanket where he could hold it close to his chest.

The band was just as buttery soft as he’d imagined. The watch face was heavy and thick. With his thumb, he could just barely feel the lines of the engraved M.

Ben hid his face in the back of the couch. He was not going to get all soppy and sniffly.

It was just a stupid watch.

And it was his.

“Sleep now,” Max told him, tucking the blanket in around his shoulders.

Ben wrapped his hand around his watch while a river of gentle humming carried him away.