On Guard by Andi Jaxon & J.R. Gray

ARC Review

💀 Song to set the mood 💀

“Give me your best hate. Make me believe it.”

🌶️-level: medium-high (includes praise and degradation)

Not suitable for anyone under 18 years of age
Religious trauma and homophobic parents

Blurb

Selling my virginity wasn’t how I saw my first week of college going.

But after my parents cut me off, an offer from a gorgeous rich stranger doesn’t sound so bad.
It’s only twenty-four hours and I’ll never have to see him again.
Wrong.

Much to my horror, the stranger is Oliver Godfrey, the captain of my fencing team.
And as if that isn’t bad enough, his parents own half the city.
There is no escape from him or the way he makes me feel.
He’s everything I don’t want.
And everything I need.

A playboy like him shouldn’t look at me twice, so why is he ruining my life?
But what Oliver wants, Oliver gets, and he wants me.
He’s arrogant, possessive, and infuriatingly obsessed with me.
This can’t work.

His parents want him to marry an heiress so I can’t keep him.
All I can have is stolen moments hidden in the dark.
He’s going to break my heart and I’m going to let him.

What to expect

❥ Dual POV

❥ MM Romance

❥ Sports Romance (Fencing)

❥ College Romance

❥ Billionaire Romance

❥ Enemies To Lovers

❥ Possessive MC

❥ Insta Lust

❥ Coming Out

❥ Touch Him & 💀

Review

I was so lucky to receive this ARC to review with my honest opinion.

On Guard is an enemies to lover romance about Isaac and Oliver, who are total opposites of each other. Isaac has been hiding his true self all of his life, since he was raised in a religious community where being homosexual is a sin. His secret comes out, his parents cut him off, and he’s off to college without a dime in his pocket. He can’t see things working out in his favor at all, since he can’t afford anything – housing, books and food. Everything is looking bleak until he meets Oliver, who gives Isaac an offer hard to refuse. Thousands of dollars for spending 24 hours together. Isaac is well aware that it’s a sexual offer, and he has little to no experience in that area, but he’s desperate.

…..”And stop covering yourself. I’m paying good money to see it.”

Oliver is instantly lusting after Isaac, and he quickly becomes obsessed with him. He thinks 24 hours is enough to get Isaac out of his system, but he can’t stop thinking about him. Oliver is not in a position where he’s allowed to be lusting after a guy. He comes from a rich family with a lot of obligations and expectations, one being that he has to marry rich and smart, with a woman. But he is having a hard time staying away from Isaac, especially when it turns out that they’re on the fencing team together. Oliver makes life miserable for Isaac in his pursuits to make Isaac agree to his “punishments”.

“Isaac is mine, and I’ll destroy anyone who interferes.”

I couldn’t connect with Isaac nor Oliver at first, and I kind of disliked them both, for different reasons. Isaac had no backbone at all, and Oliver was so, so rude and degrading. Isaac grew a lot during the book, and I loved every minute of it, I especially loved seeing Isaac through Oliver’s POV, even if Oliver still was a major dick. At some point I started to embrace Oliver’s behavior and I loved his possessiveness over Isaac and him throwing out death threats here and there.

“If he touches you, I’ll kill him”

Oliver is totally unhinged, and he’s the kind of guy who gets what he wants. He’s trying to fight his feelings for Isaac, and he does so with harsh words and questionable actions, but at the same time he can’t resist and Isaac is making his walls crumble, forcing a softer side out of Oliver that he didn’t even know he had. Isaac is fighting his feelings as well, feeling like he doesn’t belong in Oliver’s world and knowing that it will only end in heartbreak because Oliver’s destination in life is already set in stone.

“I like you a lot.”
And therein lies the problem.

I loved Isaac’s friendship with Colin, his roommate and best friend. Colin was probably my favorite character in the book. He brought a lot of humor, and he is a good and loyal friend to Isaac, BUT he uses Isaac to piss off Oliver, which didn’t sit well with me. I also loved Oliver’s relationship with his twin brother, Owen. It’s obvious there is a lot of love between them, and they have each other’s back in their whole messy family situation.

So, I loved a lot of things about the book, but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I had hoped. The story is very fast paced, and I had a hard time really getting into the book, because there is a lot of things happening, but it’s just skipping over each thing quickly and moving on to the next. I felt confused at times, having to read back to make things make sense. I also didn’t enjoy the dynamic between Oliver and Isaac in the first half of the book. I’m a dark romance girl on the side, so I’m not unfamiliar with men pretending to be detached and using degradation during sexy times, but it just felt so ick to me at times, like Isaac didn’t really give his consent to be threated the way Oliver was threating him, and Oliver kept pushing until Isaac felt like he had no other choice than to give in. It wasn’t sexy at all.

With that being said, I’m still looking forward to the next book, and I can’t wait to see more of Colin and Owen ♥