Obedience - Chapter 14
She Writes About Male Submission. He Hates It. A Spicy Enemies-to-Lovers Romance from Sloane Black 🖤
New here? You’ll want Chapters 1–13 first. Find them here. 🖤
Previously on Obedience...
Bestselling romance author Kathryn Sinclair and thriller writer Marcus Kane couldn’t agree on anything.
Forced onto a joint press tour, their public arguments became the internet’s favorite blood sport. Every debate pulled them closer, even as neither of them wanted to admit it.
Then everything changed.
After a podcast appearance, Kathryn was attacked in a hotel stairwell. Marcus intervened, believing he had simply been in the right place at the right time.
The attack went viral.
After, a leaked email revealed that the publisher had planned the “hero moment” as a publicity stunt. Marcus’s name had been copied on the email chain, but he never read it. Kathryn believed he had betrayed her.
Heartbroken, she sent him away.
Now Marcus has a plan to make things right—not by rescuing Kathryn, but by telling the truth.
Marcus’s hand was shaking as he hit the call button. The phone rang twice.
“Marcus!” Derrick answered, too cheerful for the hour. “Hell of a night. Everyone’s talking about—”
“Shut up.”
“Marcus?”
“They used me.”
Another pause. “What are you talking about?”
“That PR stunt outside the podcast venue,” he growled. “The one I didn’t agree to. The one I just found in my goddamn inbox. The one you knew about.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me, Derrick. You let them set me up like I was some prop in a revenge fantasy. Do you know what that did to her? Do you have any idea—”
“Hey, hey, slow down—”
“I broke a man’s nose because I thought Kathryn was in danger. And all the while, you and your PR team were trading my name around like I was some... Trojan horse for toxic masculinity.”
“Marcus—”
“You let them turn me into a weapon. Without my consent. Without hers.”
Derrick finally exhaled. “Okay. Let’s slow this down. First of all, that thread wasn’t supposed to go public. No one anticipated a leak—”
“But you anticipated using me?” Marcus said.
“I thought you’d want the press.”
“You’re fired.”
“Come on. Don’t be rash—”
“I said you’re fired. I want nothing to do with anyone who thought they could choreograph my life behind my back.”
“Look, if you’d just calm down—we didn’t do anything behind your back. You were on the email chain. It’s not my fault you’re a fucking luddite who refuses to join the 21st century, man ”
Marcus went still.
“You think because I missed the memo, it’s on me that you used me?”
“You weren’t used. You were featured.”
Marcus’s mouth twisted. “You know what I hear when you say that?”
He didn’t wait for a reply.
“I hear that I was just enough of a soldier to play hero, but not enough of a person to ask permission. I hear that Kathryn’s trauma was your plot device. And I hear that none of you ever gave a shit about what she needed—just how it looked.”
“Marcus—”
“You should be scared,” he said, calm now. Too calm. “Because I’m going to every outlet who ran this story and giving them the real one. No spin. No NDA. No filter.”
“This was business, Marcus. You’re making this personal.”
“It was personal.”
He hung up. Then he threw the phone across the room.
It hit the wall with a crack and dropped to the carpet. Marcus knew there was only one thing left to do.
Tell the real story. And he knew just where to go.
Maeve killed the intro music.
The Pink Pill logo glowed behind them in soft pink neon and Emma adjusted the microphone in front of Marcus.
“You said you had something you needed to say,” she said quietly. “Take your time.”
Marcus looked straight ahead, past the studio lights and the TikTok Live counter climbing by the second. He sat there longer than anyone was comfortable with. Finally, he rubbed both hands over his face.
“I don’t really know how to do this. I’ve spent most of my life trying not to talk about my feelings.”
Nobody interrupted.
“Believing if you kept your mouth shut, eventually things sorted themselves out.”
A humorless laugh.
“They don’t. So let’s start with the only thing that matters.”
He looked straight into the camera.
“Kathryn Sinclair didn’t know about the staged attack.”
His voice was flat.
“She wasn’t part of the publicity stunt. She didn’t agree to it. If you’re looking for somebody to blame . . . “
He nodded once.
“I’m sitting right here.”
Silence.
“My name was on the email. I never read it. I should have.”
Another long pause.
“I’ve spent weeks arguing with Kathryn about control.”
A sad smile crossed his face.
“Turns out I didn’t even have control over my own damn life.”
He shook his head.
“I thought submission meant handing somebody your power.”
He looked down at his hands.
“I was wrong. It means trusting somebody enough to tell them the truth.”
His fingers tightened together.
“So here’s mine. I benefited from the publicity stunt. I didn’t mean to, but I did. And Kathryn paid for it.”
His jaw worked.
“I can’t fix that. But I can tell you this.”
He looked back into the camera.
“I’ve trusted men with my life. I’ve trusted them in places where getting it wrong meant somebody didn’t come home.”
A beat.
“I trust Kathryn Sinclair more.”
His eyes shimmered.
“I trust her to tell me the truth. To call me out when I’m wrong. And I trust her with every broken part of me I’ve spent forty years trying to hide.”
His voice almost disappeared.
“I argued with her because I thought she wanted men to be smaller. What she wanted . . . was for us to be honest.”
Another silence settled over the room.
“I love her books. I love the way she refuses to shrink herself down. And . . . I love her.”
He looked into the camera one last time.
“Kathryn . . . ”
He smiled sadly.
“If you never speak to me again . . . if that’s your decision, I’ll respect it.”
He reached up, removed his headphones, and set them gently on the table.
“Thank you for letting me tell the truth.”
He stood.
Behind him, the door opened. Maeve’s eyes widened. Emma’s jaw dropped. And then—soft, certain steps.
Marcus turned his head. And there she is.
Kathryn.
Hair windblown. Shirt half-tucked. No makeup. Just her.
The studio goes silent. The comment section explodes. And Kathryn speaks:
“Come here.”
Every instinct he’d built his life on told him to stay where he was.
To apologize.
To earn it.
Instead . . .
he trusted her.
He crossed the room.
She reached up and took his face in both hands.
“You’ve been trying to prove you’re strong since the day I met you.”
A tear slipped down his cheek.
“You don’t have to anymore.”
She leaned her forehead against his. He closed his eyes. And she whispered softly enough that only he could hear.
“Good boy.”
This is the fourteenth chapter of my very first romance novel. New chapters every Thursday. (Or Wednesday night if I get impatient.) The rest of the chapters are waiting for you right here.
You get to be the first to discover it, Smuts. And I’m glad you’re my firsts. 🖤
love reading your stuff always
The reversal is what got me: he spent thirteen chapters thinking dominance meant winning the argument, and you needed one live confession to show him submission was ever about trust, not control. That "good boy" lands so much harder than any explicit scene would, because you made us wait for it. Curious if Kathryn forgives that fast or if you're going to make the reunion earn itself too.