by Mackenzy Fox
Jaxon
Bad Boys of New York Book #1
Mackenzy Fox
Contents
Author’s Note
Untitled
Prologue
1. Morgan
2. Morgan
3. Jaxon
4. Morgan
5. Jaxon
6. Morgan
7. Jaxon
8. Morgan
9. Jaxon
10. Morgan
11. Jaxon
12. Morgan
13. Jaxon
14. Morgan
15. Jaxon
16. Morgan
17. Jaxon
18. Morgan
19. Jaxon
20. Jaxon
21. Morgan
22. Jaxon
23. Morgan
24. Jaxon
25. Jaxon
26. Morgan
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Mackenzy Fox
Steel: Chapter One Excerpt
Copyright © 2021 Mackenzy Fox
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher
Please purchase only authorised electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover by: Carrie – cheekycovers.com
Formatting by: @peachykeenas (Savannah Richey)
Editing and proofreading by: Laura M Wilkinson (Fiverr)
To all the supporters, readers, bloggers, fellow indie authors that have followed me on my journey, this one’s for you. Many thanks, MF xx
Author’s Note
CONTENT WARNING: Jaxon is a slow-burn enemies to lovers steamy romance for readers 18+ and it contains mature themes, language and explicit sexual content. It also includes violence which may result in possible triggers to some readers.
I hope you love Jaxon and Morgan as much as I enjoyed bringing them to life! This is book 1 in the Bad Boys of New York series but can be read stand-alone.
Jaxon is every shade of wrong and a whole lotta right. When billionaire businessman John James hires Jaxon to guard his daughter, rich and privileged Morgan James, Jaxon’s high school crush, things go from bad to worse. He thinks she’s stuck up and spoiled, she thinks he’s arrogant and rude, together they may just take enemies to a whole new level.
Jaxon:
She’s feisty. She’s gorgeous. She likes to play games. What Morgan doesn’t know is that I make the rules and only I get to break them. She can act all prim and proper and have her nose stuck in the air but one thing she won’t do is break any links in my well-guarded armor.
I’ve been ordered to protect her, keep her safe, keep everyone at bay and I’ll do my job, the question is, can I keep my dirty hands off her? The only woman who’s forbidden and knows just how to get under my skin.
Morgan:
He’s bad. He’s got attitude. He puts all other men to shame. The last time I saw him was 14 years ago and so much has changed. He thinks he can boss me around. He thinks I have to do what he says, well Jaxon Westbrook can think again. I’m no push over and I don’t take orders from him. He may be my bodyguard but I’m still the one calling the shots. He works for me. Even if my heart races and my body aches every time he’s close, I won’t let him see how he affects me. It’s my secret. I’ll win this battle. I’ll weather the storm, if it’s the last thing I do.
Prologue
The phone rings, making me jump out of my sleep. I don’t know what I was dreaming about, but whatever it was has my heart thrumming in my chest.
I glance at the blonde next to me, limp and rolled over to one side. Damn, another complication to take care of.
I curse and rub my eyes, reaching for the vibrating phone on the bedside table. The number isn’t familiar, so I know I should ignore it, but old habits die hard.
“Jaxon,” I say roughly, rubbing my hand over my face. Whoever it is had better have a damn good reason to wake me at this ungodly hour on a Sunday.
“Westbrook, it’s John James.”
The voice on the line is more than familiar, he’s my father’s good friend, they used to play golf together and I went to the same school as his rich bitch daughter, Morgan. I haven’t heard from him in years.
I sit up, rubbing the heel of my palm into one eye.
“John? Do you know what time it is?”
He laughs. “Thought you city boys rock n’ rolled all day and partied every night?”
“We do but I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore,” I grunt. Ain’t that the truth.
“I’ll cut to the chase and apologize later, so excuse me for being frank, but I’ve got a situation and I heard you left your security position.”
Good news travelled fast.
I stifle a yawn. “I’m listening.”
“I want you to come and work for me,” he says bluntly. “And before you turn me down, at least hear me out.”
Something must be very wrong if he’s calling somebody like me.
Nobody calls me unless they have a situation they need dealing with, usually the illegal kind, but I got out of the game a long time ago. I run bars and clubs now, I left special ops and then later the security biz behind me.
John C. James is a very wealthy man, a billionaire, ruthless in business, some say a tyrant. Admittedly, I’m not up to speed on what he’s been up to lately nor do I really care, though I’m not impressed at being woken up on a Sunday, I need my beauty sleep.
“Come and work for you?” I scoff. “Did I hear that right?”
I run a hand over my face and sit up, moving to the side of the bed as I look around for my boxers. I have no idea where they landed earlier in the evening. My date was a bit of an animal.
“You heard me right.”
I sigh out loud. “You know I’m not in the game anymore, got myself a respectable job, no more hustling or looking over my shoulder. I like that, John. You got the wrong guy in mind but I can hook you up with someone who can help.”
I have some friends in pretty low places.
He baulks. “I heard nightclubs can be expensive what with the overheads, staff, lawsuits…”
I’d been in the papers recently, some chump tried to glass one of my girls when they refused to serve him drunk, so I slogged him over the head with a chair and beat his ass. It made headlines.
“You know what they say about any publicity being good publicity,” I mock.
He snorts. “Still a cocky little shit.”
“Some things never change, John. You of all people know that.”
There’s a few moments of uncollected silence.
“Meet with me over breakfast,” he says firmly, his tone demands that he’s not taking no for an answer, taking my banter as foreplay instead of a straight ‘fuck you’.
I don’t need to do any mental arithmetic to know that it ain’t gonna happen. My days of living like a ghost were done.
I rub my thumb and forefinger between the bridge of my nose and suppress a groan because I don’t like the feeling I’m getting in the pit of my stomach, but curiosity still gets the better of me.
“What do you need me to do?” Please don’t say I have to whack som
eone.
I thought my time as a green beret was far behind me. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time since leaving the military that I’d been offered illegal and dangerous jobs to coax me out of retirement, but it wasn’t worth it, I’d made my money in security and got out.
You can only spend so long being someone else’s bitch.
“I’d rather not go into details over the phone, but it’s mainly private security. I want you on my team.”
Mainly private security? So, he doesn’t need me to whack someone? I stifle a relieved sigh, at least that’s something.
“Come on, John, you gotta give me something, you woke me up during my beauty sleep which I value quite highly, so the least you could do is give me a heads-up before I haul ass.”
I locate my boxers and tug them on rather awkwardly up my legs.
“I need you to watch Morgan.”
I freeze mid-struggle.
What the actual fuck?
Maybe I need to get my hearing checked because I’m pretty sure he just said he wants me to watch his stuck-up, self-centered, brat of a daughter who thinks she’s above everyone else.
Morgan James has never done a day’s hard work in her life, in fact, she’s probably never had to lift one pretty little manicured finger to get anything. She just clicks her fingers and her slaves come running like measly peasants from all directions.
To do that and work for him would imply that I actually care, and I don’t.
“I need the best, there’s nobody else I would trust with Morgan to keep her safe.” He goes on but it sounds like white noise. “I got some new business deals going down, you know how things can get, I receive threats against the family all the time but this is different, this time it’s serious.”
He has to be fucking kidding me. Babysitting? Is he out of his goddamned mind?
No. No. No. No. No way. I can’t believe he’s woken me in the wee hours of the morning with this ridiculous proposition.
It still doesn’t make sense. Why now? Why me? There’s a whole lot more he isn’t telling me, I’m not an idiot. Things are obviously bad, but it doesn’t matter. He can say what he wants but I’m not watching his rich bitch daughter for all the tea in China.
“I don’t babysit, John, and doesn’t she already have security detail?”
He sighs heavily. “Yes, but Mac is retiring, Leon is my main security guard but his schedule is jam-packed, I need to fill the new position immediately, which is why I need you, Jaxon.”
Well, that’s obvious or he wouldn’t be calling me… the question is why.
“Why now?” I sigh. “There’s plenty of good security around, you can get whoever you want.” Lord knows he can afford it.
“Because you’re the best,” he tells me. No surprise there. “You would do what you need to do without hesitation if it came down to it.”
I can’t argue with that, I would and have done before.
“John, I got shit going on with the clubs, I’d love to help you out and all but—”
“The sum is initially three million dollars for six months.”
I almost choke on the excuse I’m about to spout out.
Three million dollars?
I whistle through my teeth because, hell, I can’t help it. He must want me to pack some heat for that amount of money.
The blonde stirs in my bed. I continue to rub my hand down my bare chest, wondering if I misheard, or perhaps I’m delirious. Maybe John’s taken up drinking again.
“What kind of trouble are you in exactly?” I ask, lowering my voice. He can bullshit his associates all he likes but there’s no chance in hell he’s going to bullshit me.
“We’ll talk when you get here, the lines are never safe. I’ll have my driver collect you in just over an hour, say you’ll meet with me? Hear an old man out.”
He doesn’t leave me much choice with his tone or his offer.
I run a hand through my hair.
I mean, I could do with three million dollars…
“Alright, John,” I reluctantly agree. “But it’s just to hear you out, nothing more.”
“That’s all I ask,” he maintains. “I’ll send the car.”
The phone clicks off. I stand motionless for a moment, staring at the receiver. The stillness of the night is one of the few times I feel completely at peace—a time where everything is quiet and unburdening—but even that is now ruined.
In a city that never sleeps, that’s the price you pay. I of all people should know there’s no real peace anywhere, it’s merely a blip.
I thought I got out of this cloak and dagger shit years ago, I really did, but now John’s acting crazy, offering me ridiculous sums of money for a babysitting job. Nah, there’s more to it than that. Nobody offered you millions of dollars unless they want blood, or somebody’s head… or both.
I was feared in my world.
Hard core.
A beast.
But that was then.
And I had no intention of going back there, back to what I was, even if it meant tailgating his precious princess daughter while she went and got her next Botox injection or whatever it is rich girls do for kicks these days.
The least I could do was hear him out as a friend, I owed him that much. He’d been good to my father, and with me, loyalty goes a long way. You didn’t turn John James down without good reason.
Three million dollars though. The man has clearly lost his marbles; he’s obviously got more money than sense.
“What are you doing?” the blonde, I can’t remember her name, mumbles into the pillow.
“You need to get dressed.” I fumble through my closet, fishing out some jeans and a t-shirt. I chastise myself internally for keeping her here, I prefer to sleep alone, there’s less inclination for women to get clingy that way. Plus, I don’t need a strange broad in my apartment while I’m not here. It’s an asshole move to kick her to the curb but I have no choice. She can’t stay here.
“What’d ya mean?” she says again, her face squashed against the pillow. Her hair’s a complete bird’s nest from my pumping her senseless in my bed for the better part of the night. I’d had fun, she’s cute, but I don’t do small talk and I sure as hell don’t do second rounds with chicks who sleep with you on the first date. I’m fearless like that.
Seeing me half-naked pulling my clothes on, she suddenly props up on her elbow to watch me, her eyes raking down my body.
It’s no secret I drive women wild, it’s my dark broody nature, the Mediterranean look I’d inherited from my mother, and the things I could do with my mouth. I’ve always had a way with women and gave them what they wanted. We had a good time, I’m not selfish in the sack and it had been an enjoyable evening until I fell asleep and woke up with what’s-her-name still here. But now she has to go.
“I thought we could…”
“The show is over, sweetheart,” I say, throwing her clothes from the floor to the bed in one swift move. “I’ll call you a cab.”
Well, it’s the least I could do at four in the morning without getting a stiletto thrown at my head.
1
Morgan
“I’ve got no idea what’s going on but he’s completely lost his mind,” I grumble over the phone to Dixie, my best friend, while I type at my desk in a fury.
My dear old dad has just announced a new security guard will be assigned to me this week until further notice, and I have no say in it. Given the fact he owns the building I work in, I literally have no choice in the matter, so I have to suck it up. It’s just another way for him to make my life miserable and pretend he’s doing something fatherly for once. He likes to have control but this is absurd.
“When do you meet him?” Dixie gasps. I can always count on her for the right sound effects at the appropriate times.
“Tonight,” I sigh. “As if my life isn’t hard enough, now I’ve got to have security detail on me twenty-four-seven, the old man’s losing the plot.”
“Look on th
e bright side, he could be cute?” Dixie suggests hopefully.
Unfortunately, my mood is soured and I’m not in the right frame of mind to consider any perks like that, especially when things have been strained with my father since his divorce.
“Perhaps I should have you pick my security detail?” I say dryly. “At least that way I’d be guaranteed to have the best of both worlds and he’d be a total hunk who wouldn’t annoy me.”
“You forgot scantily clad,” Dixie adds. I can just imagine it and her intensive assessment of the candidates. I can’t help but smile even in my fury.
My current bodyguard, Mac, is retiring. He’s older than my father and I’m going to miss him dearly, but I don’t need full-time security. I need to put my foot down.
I realize I do have the tendency to be resistant to change but I blame my upbringing for that. It was always difficult with my father being away for work all the time. My mom died in a car crash when I was four so I don’t remember her. I do remember my array of nanny’s that came and went and, for the most part, they were great, I just didn’t like it when they left… and they left a lot.
My therapist thinks I have control issues, but I just like things how I like them, doesn’t everyone?
“In all fairness, the old man is just looking out for you, Morg, I’m sure all he has is your best interests at heart,” she goes on like I need the lecture. “Cut him some slack, would you? He’s a powerful man in this town.”