The Beast Unchained

An Exclusive Bonus Scene from The Demolitionist
Tank’s POV — Set after Chapter 6

The Beast Unchained

Tank’s POV

She was asleep in my arms, and I could not stop staring.

такая маленькая. So small. Her entire body fit in the curve of mine, tucked against my chest like she was made for this. For me. Her breathing was slow and even, her face peaceful in sleep, and I traced the line of her cheekbone with one finger—carefully, always carefully—marveling at how soft her skin was.

How had this happened?

Forty-four years I had lived. Forty-four years of violence and survival and the slow, painful work of becoming someone different. And now this woman—this tiny, fierce, impossible woman—lay in my arms like she belonged there.

Like she trusted me.

The marks on her hips were already darkening. My fingerprints, pressed into her skin, proof of what I’d done. What she’d asked me to do. I should have felt guilt. Horror. The old familiar shame that came whenever my strength left bruises on something soft.

Instead, I felt… pride.

She had wanted those marks. Had begged me for them. Had looked at me with those bright eyes and said harder like it was a prayer, and I had given her everything she asked for.

And nothing bad had happened.

I was still processing this when she stirred against me. Her eyes fluttered open—confused at first, then softening as she remembered where she was. Who she was with.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi.” My voice came out rough. “You should sleep more.”

“I’m not tired.” She stretched against me, and the movement pressed her body along the length of mine in ways that made my blood heat. “I’m… I don’t have words for what I am right now.”

“Sore?”

“The good kind.” She tilted her head back to look at me, and her smile made something crack open in my chest. “The kind that reminds me what we did every time I move.”

“I was rough.”

“You were perfect.”

She said it so simply. Like it was obvious. Like she hadn’t just handed me the thing I’d been terrified of my entire adult life and shown me it wasn’t a monster after all.

“Callie—”

“I want more.”

I blinked. “More?”

“More of you. More of this.” She rolled in my arms until she was facing me, her small hands pressing flat against my chest. “I know you’re worried about hurting me. But what we did earlier—that wasn’t hurting. That was loving. Just… louder than usual.”

Louder than usual. I huffed—almost a laugh. “You are impossible woman.”

“So I’ve been told.” Her hands were moving now, tracing the lines of my tattoos. The cathedral domes. The stars. The history of violence written on my skin. “I want to know what it feels like when you’re not holding back at all.”

“You had that. Earlier.”

“Did I?” Her eyes met mine, knowing. “You held back. Even then. I could feel it—the way you were monitoring yourself. Making sure you didn’t cross some line you’d drawn in your head.”

She was right. Of course she was right. Even in my wildest moments, there was always a part of me watching. Calculating. Making sure the beast stayed on its leash.

“What if there is no leash?” I asked quietly. “What if you see what’s underneath and you—”

“I’ll love it.” She didn’t hesitate. “Because it’s you. All of you. And I want all of you, Anatoli. Not just the parts you think are safe.”

No one had ever called me safe. No one had ever looked at my hands—these massive, scarred hands that had done terrible things—and seen something other than weapons.

Until her.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

* * *

I started slow.

Not because I was afraid—though I was, always, that old fear never quite going away—but because I wanted to savor her. Every inch of her. Every sound she made.

I rolled her onto her back and settled over her, bracing my weight on my forearms so I wouldn’t crush her. She looked so small beneath me. So delicate. Her whole body fit in the space my shadow created, and something primal stirred in my chest at the sight.

Mine.

“ты моя,” I murmured against her throat. “You are mine.”

“Yours,” she agreed, tilting her head back to give me access. “All yours.”

I kissed down her body with deliberate slowness. Her collarbones. The swell of her breasts. The soft plane of her stomach. She squirmed beneath me, making frustrated sounds, but I held her hips in place with one hand—just one hand, spanning from hip to hip, keeping her exactly where I wanted her.

“Anatoli—”

“Patience, малышка.”

“I don’t want to be patient.”

“I know.” I pressed a kiss to her hip bone, right where my fingerprint was darkening. “But I am in charge now. And I want to worship you.”

She whimpered. Actually whimpered. The sound went straight to my cock, already hard again despite how thoroughly we’d exhausted each other earlier.

I spread her thighs with my hands—so easy, so effortless, her legs falling open for me like petals—and looked at her. Really looked. Pink and swollen from earlier, glistening with arousal, so small and perfect I had to close my eyes for a moment.

“You are beautiful,” I told her. “Most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

“Anatoli, please—”

I lowered my mouth to her and stopped thinking.

She tasted like heaven. Like everything I’d been denied. I licked into her with broad strokes of my tongue, savoring every gasp and moan, holding her in place when she tried to buck against me. My hands on her thighs. My tongue on her center. My entire world narrowing to the space between her legs.

“Oh God—oh God—”

I found her clit and circled it slowly. Teasing. Drawing out her pleasure until she was sobbing my name.

“Please, please, please—”

“Please what?” I lifted my head just enough to speak. “Tell me what you need, малышка.”

“You. Inside me. Now.”

“Not yet.” I slid one finger inside her—just one, though even that made her cry out—and curled it to find the spot that made her see stars. “First you will come like this. Then I will give you more.”

“I can’t—”

“You can.” I added a second finger, stretching her, and lowered my mouth back to her clit. “You will.”

She came with a scream that rattled the windows.

I worked her through it, gentling my touch as the aftershocks rolled through her, and then I was moving—positioning myself between her thighs, the head of my cock pressing against her entrance.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes fluttered open. Dazed. Blissed. So full of trust it made my chest ache.

“I love you,” I told her. “я тебя люблю. Remember that. Whatever happens next—remember that I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And I pushed inside.

* * *

The feeling of being inside her never got less overwhelming.

She was so tight. So hot. So impossibly small around me that every time we did this, part of me marveled that it worked at all. That my body could fit inside hers without breaking her.

But it did. It always did. And the sounds she made—

God, the sounds she made.

“More,” she gasped. “Anatoli—more—”

I gave her more. Thrust deeper, harder, watching her body take all of me with an expression of pure ecstasy. Her back arched off the bed. Her hands clawed at my shoulders. Her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, demanding everything I had.

And something in me… let go.

The leash I’d been holding my entire adult life—the constant vigilance, the fear, the certainty that I was one wrong move away from destruction—it just… dissolved.

I moved on instinct. On need. On the primal drive to claim this woman in every way possible. I hooked her legs over my shoulders, folding her nearly in half, and drove into her with a force that should have been terrifying.

It wasn’t.

Because she was meeting me thrust for thrust. Because she was chanting my name like a prayer. Because she was looking at me with those bright eyes and there was no fear there—only love, only desire, only the absolute certainty that she was exactly where she wanted to be.

“такая красивая,” I groaned. “So beautiful. Taking all of me. My perfect girl. My малышка.”

“Yes—yours—all yours—”

“Come for me.” I shifted the angle, grinding against her clit with every thrust. “Come for me, Callie. Let me feel you.”

She shattered.

I felt it everywhere—the clench of her body around mine, the spasms that rippled through her, the scream that tore from her throat as the orgasm crashed through her. And I followed, spilling into her with a roar that shook the house, pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.

Afterward, I collapsed beside her, pulling her against my chest. Both of us shaking. Both of us wrecked.

“Anatoli?”

“Yes, малышка?”

“That was…” She laughed, a breathless, joyful sound. “I don’t have words.”

“Good.” I pressed a kiss to her hair. “Words are overrated.”

She snuggled closer, fitting herself into the hollow of my body like she was made for it. Because she was. Because somehow, against all odds, this small fierce woman had been made to fit exactly here.

In my arms. In my heart. In my life.

“I love you,” she murmured sleepily.

“я тебя люблю,” I whispered back. “Today. Tomorrow. Always.”

And for the first time in forty-four years, I believed the word always might actually mean something.

Thank You!

Thank you for reading Tank and Callie’s bonus scene. The story continues in Book Eight: The Realtor, where Julian Ashworth gathers all eight men under one roof for the first time—and creates something none of them will ever forget.

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