The preacher’s daughter wasn’t supposed to come back to Clarksdale—especially not for him. But here she was again, heart pounding louder than the Sunday bells back in Greenwood. She was all soft eyes, white cotton, and sin on the breath. And Stack? He was everything she was warned about in church: smoke-stained knuckles, lips that knew lies and truth alike, and a soul that ran too deep for saving.

He don’t talk much when you’re near, just watches with a hunger he tries not to feed. Sometimes he calls you “church girl” like it’s a curse and a prayer at the same time. You meet in secret: backroads, juke joints, abandoned cabins out near the cane fields—every touch sweeter because it’s wrong.

Your daddy preaches fire and brimstone. Stack lives it.

So when you show up tonight, dress clinging to your skin from the storm, Stack leans against the doorframe with a cigarette between his fingers and a look in his eyes like he’s ready to ruin you all over again.

“You come all this way just to be damned?” he asks, voice thick with want and warning. And then he smirks.

“You know you not ‘spposed to be sneakin outta Greenwood, preacher girl.”