Gabriel Hunter took a peek into his basement at midday and saw that his employee was curled up, napping on the couch where she spent a good deal of her time. Not that she didn't have a perfectly good bedroom, Gabriel had seen to that. She was one of his most important employees, and most trusted friend.
Usually upon finding one of his employees napping during work hours Gabriel would have yelled and threatened to cut their pay rates. Or put them or the dishes roster for two weeks straight. Jess Thomson was an exception though, because she did crazy amounts of work, at crazy times of the night, just for they fun of it.
He knew for a fact that she had been up until 3am tinkering with his new crossbow, because he had been having difficulty adjusting it. Jess was his weaponry and mechanics specialist, and he wouldn't have trusted anyone else with his new baby.
Shrugging, Gabriel headed back up the stairs, leaving Jess alone again. He would thank her later.
***
Jess was a short, spunky shape shifter fox who had a knack for looking cute when she wanted to look fierce, and for dying her own hair. Currently her hair was streaked fire engine red and black. The red was for her fox, because everyone knew that foxes were red (the fire engine bit was her own addition) and the black went well with her eyes, which to most people looked the same colour. If you looked really closely, in the right light, they were actually a deep brown.
The basement was one of Jess's favourite places to be. It was big, but deceptively so, so really it felt small, and dim, and cosy. Also when she was in the basement pulling apart machinery, or cleaning weapons, most of her work, and house-mates, didn't bother her. That was because most of her housemates were cats and cats pretty much didn't like the feeling of being holed up under a perfectly good house for too long.
Living and working in the situation Jess was in probably wasn't exactly a normal thing for a shape shifter fox. Jess didn't exactly know what was a normal thing for a shape shifter fox to be doing though – she'd never met another shape shifter like herself. Gabriel thought it was because foxes were so quiet and in love with their own privacy that they probably wouldn't out themselves to their own mothers.
Living with cats meant she had caught onto some of their bad habits. Jess was a big fan of the cat nap. She was probably a bigger fan of the cat-nap than Alexia who often said that she would be happy in life if all she could do was sleep for 20 hours a day, and beat the crap out of Rider for the other 4.
Today Jess wasn't even napping because she was tired – although she should have been after the all-nighter she had just pulled. Today she was just napping because once she had flopped onto the spot with the broken springs on her couch it had just seemed like too much effort to haul herself back out again.
She woke with a start as a heavy weight landed on top of her. As her eyes flew open she realised that Finn Balmore had quite comfortably settled himself on top of her and was grinning alarmingly close to her face. Jess's throat closed up a little and her heart gave a weak flutter in her chest. She hated it when he did that to her.
Finn was one of the wolves who had followed Marcus Louvre and his partner to Gabriel's estate outside of Paradise City. Gabriel had hired all of them on the spot, not so much for the wolves, but for the fact that Marcus's partner was Sabine Moon, one of the most formidable fighters from Royce Moon's jaguar pack. With Alexia Devon – a half royal half Theris shape shifter – under his protection it was an opportunity Gabriel couldn't afford to give up.
As for Finn? He and Jess were friends, which Jess was completely at peace with. Except of course when his gorgeous face was only inches from her own, while his muscular body was curled warmly over hers.
It was all just play to Finn, who had never really been much of a fan of personal space. As long as she kept reminding herself of that, she would be fine.
"Get off me Finn. I was sleeping. Plus you smell like wet dog."
"I'm going to the city with Rider, for groceries. Need anything?" Finn stayed right where he was, ignoring Jess's crankiness.
"Get me some ham. And chocolate. And make sure you get some popcorn for Max because she got real pissy when we stole her last package the other day." Jess said before closing her eyes and ignoring her friend – hoping he'd get the hint and bugger off.
As usual Finn was oblivious to the hint.
"Wanna come?"
Jess ignored him, and tucked her chin a little more securely against her chest.
Finn's weight left her body and she breathed an inner sigh of relief. The couch dipped and Finn tickled her under the chin.
"Jess... Wake up..." Finn whispered.
She opened one eye to find him lying on his side next to her.
"Come on. Come for a ride. And stop scowling. You know you can't pull it off, you just look cute. Or in this case, like you've been drugged and put through a washing machine – when was the last time you brushed your hair by the way?" He asked, fully aware that he was annoying the hell out of Jess.
Jess groaned and sat up. "Fine I'll come for a ride. But I'm not getting out of the car. And I'm not brushing my hair. And if you think I'm going to put on clean clothing you're in for a nasty shock."
Finn grinned and bounced off the couch triumphantly. "Good, because Rider's in the car out front, and you'd just make him angrier if you screw around and waste any more of his time."
Still not awake Jess stumbled up the stairs and made her way out to the front of the house where the sunlight blinded her. She paused for a second and Finn grabbed her shoulder steering her down the stairs and to the car.
"You know you've probably been in the basement too long when it takes your eyes longer than a few seconds to adjust to the sun you know..." Rider said from the front seat.
"I was napping. I'm not awake yet."
The car shook as Finn wrenched open the passenger side door and threw himself in. "Sure, sure. She was surrounded by porn. Again. Don't bother shaking your head or rolling your eyes. We all know what you get up to down there."
"Finn you're lucky you two are friends..." Rider said, while pulling out of the driveway. "Otherwise I'd say that your insistence on teasing the woman who has all the guns and ammunition in her play room shows a complete lack of respect for the quality of your own life."
Finn grinned broadly and replied "I like to live on the wild side."
