Of Want and Need
So fucking perfect. So fucking cold. She does not need him anymore, now that she's used him up and moved on to her new business partner, the rich and infuriating Tony, who smiles now, whose face somehow softens every time he looks at her. That ruthless slime ball has got what Liam wanted.
He knows. He knows good and well just what Carla Connor likes and wants and needs, and he knows Tony Gordon can't give it to her. The only problem is, he was never sure he could give it to her either, and he was never brave enough to try and find out.
The girls in the factory told Michelle, who told him that sometimes they hear Carla throwing things and swearing.
The name she curses is 'Gordon' and everyone thinks it is juicy gossip, sweet in a way, that the couple are so passionate, that if Tony can make her scream in anger he can make her scream in other ways. Liam knows better, because when she's at her most angry, Carla does not scream, she goes icy cold and razor sharp. It's hard to work her past the ice to the fire that lies on the other side and Tony wouldn't even know how to begin to do it.
Whenever he has reason to go the factory she won't talk to him. She's busy, she's tired, she's talking to Tony, she's got other things to do and he's just not a priority. Maybe his business could wait and he could come back later when she has time (Carla tells him, eyes hard and mocking, there will not another chance), or he could leave a message with Rosie. He can't say what he needs to say in front of anyone else or to Rosie so he leaves some documents to finalise the selling of his share of the factory and leaves. He goes back home to his wife and thinks, about Maria, Leanne about every other woman he's ever had a thing with, and none of them have ever made him feel this way, as if he's desperate for even a touch of her anger.
Fuck her, fuck her and her perfect hair that's never mused, and her perfect make-up and her perfect excuse to never see him again. Fuck her. So the next time Rosie says, "or you could leave a message with me," he says no.
Rosie is taken aback, used to flirting for a while before Liam walks away. It is clear Carla has given her strict instruction that she has no time to talk to her ex brother-in-law. "No?"
"No."
"Mr Connor, I'm sorry but Carla is unavailable." Rosie tries her best to act professional. Liam wonders if she practices in the mirror.
"To me. I know"
He can see it in Rosie's animated eyes, she doesn't know what to do, and she's probably wondering if Liam's snapped, if Carla will be angry at her, she's wondering if she has any exciting new gossip to share with anyone who will listen.
Then Carla steps in, hands on hips in the doorway to what used to be their office. "I assume it's very important Liam? So important you're badgering Rosie?"
"You know it is."
Carla raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him, then smiles with fake sweetness at Rosie. "I seem to have forgotten a very important meeting with Liam, Rosie. Make sure we're not disturbed." The smile is gone before the door closes behind them. "Well that was embarrassing for both of us."
"I realise that."
"Do you." It's not a question, not the way she says it, he knows that as well as she does. "Yes you do. So tell me, Liam, what is it that can't possibly wait?"
"Why him?"
"I assume we're talking about Tony."
"Yes!"
"Why him, or why not you? What are you really asking me?"
"You know what I'm asking you!"
"No, I'm not certain that I do." She sits behind the desk and crosses her arms, eyes sharp and predator like. "Why don't you tell me? Why don't you spell it out for me, Liam."
She's good and angry now, words hard like bullets and there's a nuclear winter in her eyes. He is suddenly very afraid this was a mistake.
"I…I can't." Suddenly he sees Maria in his mind, thinks about hurting her and all he could lose by being here.
"Can't?" Her leg bumps the desk when she stands and, as he watches, a hole runs down her flimsy tights. She circles it with a manicured fingernail, and then angrily tears it a little further. "You can't say, you can't spell out what you wanted badly enough to barge into my office looking for? That's really pathetic Lee."
He ignores her challenge. "Why wouldn't you see me?" He's come too far and he's too angry to back down, and she won't allow him to anyway. "Why don't you want me?"
Carla's still toying with that ever-widening hole. "What makes you think I ever did? Perhaps I simply needed a good looking man to play with and now I've found someone better, hotter and more powerful than little Liam."
"Stop it!" Shit, he hopes Rosie is not listening at the door. Thank god the blinds are already down.
"Why? Isn't this what you came here for? Aren't we to fight until you've soothed whatever's wrong with you by taking it out on me? Isn't that why you're here?" She rounds the desk and reaches her hands towards him, stopping scant inches away. "Don't you want to tell me how jealous you are? Or would you rather I tell you why I want him and not you?"
"Bitch!" He's not sure if she flinches when he says that, and he's not sure if it matters.
She laughs even though he finds nothing amusing.
"Bitch. Yes. Hardly original Leebugs. I'm always surprised by the lack of creativity in people's insults." She runs her hands down his chest before dropping them to her sides. "Even Maria does better. Perhaps you could try 'whore' next. I've always found myself well-suited to that word."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Why are you?" She steps close to him, closer than she's been in a long time, but she doesn't touch him. "What do you want Liam, and are you man enough to take it?"
She laughs again, low and bitter this time as he backs away, then she turns her back on him.
"It's the game you like, isn't it, Lee? It's the run-and-chase, hide-and-seek that you enjoy. Don't you get enough of that with Maria, or is she too easy?"
He's gentleman enough to place his hand behind her head before it hits the wall, but her shoulders hit with some force, and their teeth collide when he presses his mouth over hers. He can taste blood and he's not sure if it's his or hers.
"How dare you!"
The red streak on her hand after she recoils from slapping him lets him know the blood is coming from his mouth, and that feels right, as if he could bleed her right out of him, smear it back onto her, make all this go away.
"Don't pretend you don't want it, don't even lie to me, Carla." He backs her right up against the wall and kisses her again, grunting when she bites down hard on his injured lip. Her mouth is red when they part. "Don't you dare lie to me. You want this as much as I do."
She rakes her nails over his neck when she pulls him to her for another kiss, then grabs his arm so hard he thinks she might leave bruises when she pushes him away. He lands on the desk, something shatters under his back. A water glass, he decides, when he feels the icy liquid seeping into his shirt.
"Lie to you." She says, standing over him. "Don't I dare lie to you." She kicks his ankles apart with her foot and smirks when he pulls them back together. "And what about you? What about honour and love and loyalty?" She narrows her eyes "What about your poor wife?"
She could always draw blood with words.
"What about Paul? What about Tony?!"
He won't part his legs, so she straddles him, pulls her skirt up, sits herself atop him and grinds down. He grabs her thighs in his hands and that hole is underneath his fingers. "I never lied," he says, and he feels the damn hole widening under his hand. "I was confused but I never lied to you, Carla."
She shifts on top of him and her tights tear further. He could fit his hand inside if he wants to, and he wants to, so he follows the hole around her leg and up the inside of her thigh.
"God." She moans, and he knows he's won.
He stops, with his fingers at the edge of her underwear, inches away from her cleft. "Not god, Carla. Not god and not Tony, just me."
"Yes." She moans, and it's not enough.
"Want this?" he says, and he teases his fingers around her opening. "You know I do, Carla, you know I want you." He thrusts upwards and watches her blink her eyes when she moans.
She's hot and wet, and she's moving around on top of him with her eyes closed. He wants nothing more than to unfasten his pants and slide into her, but not yet. He somehow manages to pull down her tights and knickers without her leaving his lap. She kicks the discarded garments away, along with her shoes before he slips one finger teasingly inside her, then pulls it out, swirls it around before dipping back in.
"Say it, Carla."
"Fuck you, Liam."
"That's not it," he says, as he adds a second finger. "Tell me you want me."
"You." She moans, and it's still not enough.
He pulls his hand away from her, and she watches him, wide-eyed and beautiful, as he raises it to his mouth. "Does Tony like the way you taste, Carla? Does he even know how you taste?"
She is too amused to be angry with him, instead she smiles enigmatically. At this second it doesn't matter what the answer is because she wants him. He brushes his finger, smeared now with blood from his mouth and her juices, over her lips, then down her body, before returning to her pussy. This time he doesn't waste any time, thrusting two fingers inside her and brushing her clit with his thumb, reaching up with his other hand to caress her breasts through her silky shirt.
She's killing him, wiggling around up there, and he can't take his eyes off her, off her perfect hair all mussed up now, falling in dark waves over her face, her perfect control all shot because she's moaning and cursing, and its all because of him.
He can't take it anymore, picking her up by the waist he turns them until she is below him on the desk. Her cheeks are pleasantly flushed and she's biting her bottom lip in a way that makes his cock achingly hard.
They kiss deeply, Carla's hands undoing and discarding his trousers and pants. He only breaks the messy kiss to pull her top off, takes a second to take her in clad only in her bra, skirt around her waist.
"Make love to me." She says lips warm against his cheek.
The words drive him crazy, circle around his brain, and how can he do anything but thrust into her. He closes his eyes at the sensation of her. How can they not be together when they fit so well? She is tight and soft like velvet, breast pressed against his chest. This would not take either of them long.
Her hands are on his face, just as needy and grasping as those greedy little cries he's drawing out of her with each grind of his cock into her. She should be delicate, but she's not, exactly. Soft yes, and light as he supports her weight, but for all the surrender her eyes are shining fiercely, and there's nothing but passion and need in the way she's moving against him, matching his thrusts with ones of her own. He slams into her, deeper, harder, and she cries out with raw desire, and it's like a drug and he thrusts again, faster, harder.
Because she likes it, likes the way he's fucking her, and Carla is his, all his and only his, and she's making him crazy. This is how she is meant to be. His, always his, with no ghosts hiding in her eyes, no private disappointment in the keening sounds humming into his neck as she tired not to alert the whole factory.
"Lee!" she screams as she comes, and that's really all he wanted.