Title: Hot for Mr. Moneybags
Series: The Single Moms of San Camanez: The Vino Vixens
Author: Whitley Cox
Genre/Tropes: Forced Proximity; Small Town; Single Mom; Silver Fox; Age Gap; Anxiety Rep; Cinnamon Roll Hero; Pro Athlete Hero
Release Date: December 20, 2025
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A quiet man. A cautious heart. A love that refuses to stay silent.Because sometimes, healing feels like falling—and falling feels like home.
Welcome to San Camanez, a humble, peaceful little island in the Puget Sound and home to the Vino Vixens. Four cousins—and single moms—who run a vineyard, love the wine they sell, raise their kids together, and still hold out hope that not all men are like the ones they married. This is Danica’s story …
Tommaso
I came to San Camanez to keep a promise to my late wife—to turn our land into a sanctuary for the lost and forgotten. The animals give me purpose; the silence keeps me steady.
Then Danica Ross and her daughter arrive, and my carefully contained world begins to shift. She’s gentle but strong, scarred but unbroken. And when her little girl’s laughter fills the barn, I start to remember what hope sounds like.
But when my wife’s cousin threatens to take the farm, I realize I could lose everything—again. This time, though, I’m not sure I can go back to being alone.
Danica
After escaping a cruel marriage, I built a quiet life for my daughter and me—safe, small, predictable. Love wasn’t part of the plan.
Then Tommaso Barone walks into our quiet, kind, infuriatingly patient. He makes me believe in trust again. In laughter. In warmth.
When his sanctuary—and our fragile new bond—are threatened, I have to decide if I’ll run like I always have… or fight for the man who’s teaching me that love doesn’t always hurt.
Set against the windswept shores of San Camanez, this tender, slow-burn romance celebrates second chances, quiet strength, and the kind of love that heals what life once broke.
“What time is it?” I yawned.
“Eleven-thirty.”
My eyes flew open wide and I sprang up from where I was on his lap. “Eleven-thirty?”
“Si.”
“Oh my god, I hardly ever stay up this late.”
“Neither do I, but I have been having such a nice time with you.”
I was on my feet now and headed to his front door, wide awake. “And I was—am—with you. But it’s still late. I need to let you get to bed. I need to get to bed. It’s a schoo—wait, it’s not a school day tomorrow, is it?” My feet practically made a screeching sound on his hardwood floor. I stopped so fast.
“Tomorrow is Sunday,” he said, totally calm, if not a little amused at how I went from zero to sixty to zero so quickly.
“Right. Saturday.” I exhaled, and my shoulders rounded. “Sam is having a sleepover with her cousins at Gabrielle’s. So as long as I’m home in the morning before she comes to find me …”
A slow smile curled on one side of his mouth as he stepped closer to me. I thought he was going to put his hands on my hips, or scoop me up and cart me off caveman style to the bedroom, but instead, he took my hand. “Let me play with your hair a little longer.” Then he tugged me back to the couch.
I was too weak, too relaxed, too infatuated with this man to say no.
“I know you said this is your first date, and I said that it’s been over twenty years since my last first date. So I am okay taking this as slow as you would like.”
We sat back down on the couch.
“However, if you are okay with it, Danica, I would very much like to kiss you.”
My breath stuttered as I inhaled, my eyes falling to his full lips. He’d shaved today, and the five o’clock shadow in all its salt-and-pepper glory was as sexy as ever. I ached to feel it scratch my cheek.
Swallowing, and unable to keep my hands from shaking, I knitted them in my lap as I sat facing him on the couch. “Yes. I … I would like that too.”
His eyelids dropped to half-mast as he reached forward and gently, but possessively, cupped the back of my neck, his pinky against my raging pulse, his thumb cradling my jaw. With his other hand, he grabbed my twitching, clasped fingers, and stilled them. “Relax. I will bite you only if you ask me to.”
My breathy “ha” of a laugh came out as more of a squeak, as he leaned forward and slowly pressed his mouth to mine.
I closed my eyes and let him take the lead, slowly letting our lips touch, then pull back, then touch and explore. He inched forward a little more, tightening his grip on my neck just a fraction, and encouraged me to open my mouth wider.
I was putty in his safe, strong hands and let him guide me through the best kiss of my life. I thought for sure that he was going to push his tongue into my mouth or lay me on my back, but he didn’t. He pressed his soft lips to mine one more time, then slowly pulled away.
I was breathless, rampant with need, and so incredibly relaxed.
Blinking open my eyes, I found him watching me, a small smile lifting one corner of his mouth higher than the other.
Was he going to kiss me again?
Please.
“Come,” he said, encouraging me to lay back down and rest my head in his lap. He started playing with my hair again. “Tell me something about you that would surprise people to learn,” he said, reaching to the side table and grabbing his wineglass. He took a sip, set it back down, then reached for my free hand again, twining our fingers together.
Swallowing, I studied the strong, angular shape of his jaw and the way the firelight cast beautiful flickering shadows across it. This man was a work of art. A stunning representation of the male form both inside and out.
“Hmm?” he probed. “What is something nobody would expect Danica St. Claire to have done?”
Biting my lip, I hedged a smile. “For my thirtieth birthday, I went and got a tattoo, then I went bungy jumping. Is that surprising?”
“Do you think people would be surprised to know that about you?”
I shrugged. “I’m the shyest of all of us. So, maybe. I take the fewest risks. I’m a bookkeeper, for goodness sake. I crunch numbers and sit in my home office all day, toiling over our business accounts. I’m boring. I’m—”
Pressing his finger across my lips, he shook his head. “You are not boring. And your job has meaning. Just because you are not fighting bad guys or sailing the high seas catching crabs does not mean your life, your work, is without meaning.”
“Superheroes and crab boat fishermen are the examples you used?”
“I like Batman and Deadliest Catch.” His broad shoulder lifted as his eyes and smile became boyish and sweet. “But you are not boring. I do not find you boring. I find you fascinating. And I want to see this tattoo.” He bobbed his silver brows salaciously. “I would never bungy jump. I do not like heights very much. So to me, that is surprising and not boring at all.”
“You’re not allowed to laugh, okay?”
“I will remain as still as a statue.”
“As still as the David?” I asked, grinning.
“Do you want me to take off all my clothes?”
Yes.
“Just don’t laugh.”
His smile was electrifying, and when I untangled our fingers, my hand trembled when I reached for the hem of my dress. His eyes followed my every movement as I slowly peeled the hem of my dress up my thighs. But my hand couldn’t stop trembling.
My breath grew ragged, and my stomach tightened into unforgiving knots.
“Here,” he said softly, resting his hand over top of mine. “Together.”
Eyes locked on each other, we dragged my dress hem up my thighs, over my pelvis, exposing my black underwear with the little satin bow, until my hipbone and the bunch of grapes with an ocean wave all in grayscale came into view. “Nothing fancy,” I croaked out. “I just liked how it represented my new life.”
With his index finger, he touched each grape, counting them in Italian. “Dieci,” he said. “Ten. One for every member of your family.”
“Yeah,” I breathed, impressed that he figured it out so quickly.
His thumb grazed my hipbone, sending electric zaps to all my erogenous zones. “I like it.”
“Me too.”
Releasing my hip, he gently, slowly tugged my dress back down my legs. “I have a tattoo.”
“Yeah?”
“You can see it on the next date.” His smile made me want to lunge up, grab him by the back of the neck, and devour his mouth. “Incentive.”
“Is that your way of securing that second date? Because the dinner and company already locked that in for you.”
Twisting our fingers back together, he nodded. “Just trying to make it impossible for you to say no.”
“It’s already impossible,” I breathed.
“Bella?”
“Si?” I asked, playfully.
“Can I hold you?” The sincerity in his eyes was almost too much. The first date of my life, and it was with the most genuine, passionate, patient man in the entire world. How was that possible? How did men like him still exist? I wasn’t sure they did in America, which was why we had to import them from the Old World.
My head bobbed, even though I wasn’t sure what “hold you” meant.
He helped me sit up, then gently, as if cradling a newborn foal and not a woman in her thirties with damp panties, he maneuvered us so we were spooning on his couch with him behind me.
“We are in no rush for things,” he said, his wine-scented breath against my neck as we settled in. “What do they call this in books?”
“Torture?” I asked, loving the way his thumb had found my hipbone over my dress and drew erotic little circles around it.
Huffing a laugh, he kissed my shoulder. “No. A slow fire?”
“Oh.” I chuckled. “A slow burn. Yeah, this is a slow burn all right.”
“You are okay with that?”
Was I?
While I was nervous as hell to take things to the bedroom, considering I hadn’t had sex with a man since Sam was conceived, every cell in my body screamed with the urgency to be beneath Tom. To feel his skin against mine, his weight on me. I knew he’d be gentle. That he wouldn’t hurt me, and would undoubtedly bring me pleasure—for the first time ever during sex. Even if I didn’t orgasm, it would be better than every single time Rufus climbed his bloated, old, zombie corpse on top of me, pumped twice, grunted, then rolled over and went to sleep.
“You have not answered, bella. Are you okay with the slow burn of us?”
“I am,” I finally said. “We’re getting to know each other.”
He kissed my shoulder again. “We are. And I really like what I am learning.”
“Me too.”
“Eleven-thirty.”
My eyes flew open wide and I sprang up from where I was on his lap. “Eleven-thirty?”
“Si.”
“Oh my god, I hardly ever stay up this late.”
“Neither do I, but I have been having such a nice time with you.”
I was on my feet now and headed to his front door, wide awake. “And I was—am—with you. But it’s still late. I need to let you get to bed. I need to get to bed. It’s a schoo—wait, it’s not a school day tomorrow, is it?” My feet practically made a screeching sound on his hardwood floor. I stopped so fast.
“Tomorrow is Sunday,” he said, totally calm, if not a little amused at how I went from zero to sixty to zero so quickly.
“Right. Saturday.” I exhaled, and my shoulders rounded. “Sam is having a sleepover with her cousins at Gabrielle’s. So as long as I’m home in the morning before she comes to find me …”
A slow smile curled on one side of his mouth as he stepped closer to me. I thought he was going to put his hands on my hips, or scoop me up and cart me off caveman style to the bedroom, but instead, he took my hand. “Let me play with your hair a little longer.” Then he tugged me back to the couch.
I was too weak, too relaxed, too infatuated with this man to say no.
“I know you said this is your first date, and I said that it’s been over twenty years since my last first date. So I am okay taking this as slow as you would like.”
We sat back down on the couch.
“However, if you are okay with it, Danica, I would very much like to kiss you.”
My breath stuttered as I inhaled, my eyes falling to his full lips. He’d shaved today, and the five o’clock shadow in all its salt-and-pepper glory was as sexy as ever. I ached to feel it scratch my cheek.
Swallowing, and unable to keep my hands from shaking, I knitted them in my lap as I sat facing him on the couch. “Yes. I … I would like that too.”
His eyelids dropped to half-mast as he reached forward and gently, but possessively, cupped the back of my neck, his pinky against my raging pulse, his thumb cradling my jaw. With his other hand, he grabbed my twitching, clasped fingers, and stilled them. “Relax. I will bite you only if you ask me to.”
My breathy “ha” of a laugh came out as more of a squeak, as he leaned forward and slowly pressed his mouth to mine.
I closed my eyes and let him take the lead, slowly letting our lips touch, then pull back, then touch and explore. He inched forward a little more, tightening his grip on my neck just a fraction, and encouraged me to open my mouth wider.
I was putty in his safe, strong hands and let him guide me through the best kiss of my life. I thought for sure that he was going to push his tongue into my mouth or lay me on my back, but he didn’t. He pressed his soft lips to mine one more time, then slowly pulled away.
I was breathless, rampant with need, and so incredibly relaxed.
Blinking open my eyes, I found him watching me, a small smile lifting one corner of his mouth higher than the other.
Was he going to kiss me again?
Please.
“Come,” he said, encouraging me to lay back down and rest my head in his lap. He started playing with my hair again. “Tell me something about you that would surprise people to learn,” he said, reaching to the side table and grabbing his wineglass. He took a sip, set it back down, then reached for my free hand again, twining our fingers together.
Swallowing, I studied the strong, angular shape of his jaw and the way the firelight cast beautiful flickering shadows across it. This man was a work of art. A stunning representation of the male form both inside and out.
“Hmm?” he probed. “What is something nobody would expect Danica St. Claire to have done?”
Biting my lip, I hedged a smile. “For my thirtieth birthday, I went and got a tattoo, then I went bungy jumping. Is that surprising?”
“Do you think people would be surprised to know that about you?”
I shrugged. “I’m the shyest of all of us. So, maybe. I take the fewest risks. I’m a bookkeeper, for goodness sake. I crunch numbers and sit in my home office all day, toiling over our business accounts. I’m boring. I’m—”
Pressing his finger across my lips, he shook his head. “You are not boring. And your job has meaning. Just because you are not fighting bad guys or sailing the high seas catching crabs does not mean your life, your work, is without meaning.”
“Superheroes and crab boat fishermen are the examples you used?”
“I like Batman and Deadliest Catch.” His broad shoulder lifted as his eyes and smile became boyish and sweet. “But you are not boring. I do not find you boring. I find you fascinating. And I want to see this tattoo.” He bobbed his silver brows salaciously. “I would never bungy jump. I do not like heights very much. So to me, that is surprising and not boring at all.”
“You’re not allowed to laugh, okay?”
“I will remain as still as a statue.”
“As still as the David?” I asked, grinning.
“Do you want me to take off all my clothes?”
Yes.
“Just don’t laugh.”
His smile was electrifying, and when I untangled our fingers, my hand trembled when I reached for the hem of my dress. His eyes followed my every movement as I slowly peeled the hem of my dress up my thighs. But my hand couldn’t stop trembling.
My breath grew ragged, and my stomach tightened into unforgiving knots.
“Here,” he said softly, resting his hand over top of mine. “Together.”
Eyes locked on each other, we dragged my dress hem up my thighs, over my pelvis, exposing my black underwear with the little satin bow, until my hipbone and the bunch of grapes with an ocean wave all in grayscale came into view. “Nothing fancy,” I croaked out. “I just liked how it represented my new life.”
With his index finger, he touched each grape, counting them in Italian. “Dieci,” he said. “Ten. One for every member of your family.”
“Yeah,” I breathed, impressed that he figured it out so quickly.
His thumb grazed my hipbone, sending electric zaps to all my erogenous zones. “I like it.”
“Me too.”
Releasing my hip, he gently, slowly tugged my dress back down my legs. “I have a tattoo.”
“Yeah?”
“You can see it on the next date.” His smile made me want to lunge up, grab him by the back of the neck, and devour his mouth. “Incentive.”
“Is that your way of securing that second date? Because the dinner and company already locked that in for you.”
Twisting our fingers back together, he nodded. “Just trying to make it impossible for you to say no.”
“It’s already impossible,” I breathed.
“Bella?”
“Si?” I asked, playfully.
“Can I hold you?” The sincerity in his eyes was almost too much. The first date of my life, and it was with the most genuine, passionate, patient man in the entire world. How was that possible? How did men like him still exist? I wasn’t sure they did in America, which was why we had to import them from the Old World.
My head bobbed, even though I wasn’t sure what “hold you” meant.
He helped me sit up, then gently, as if cradling a newborn foal and not a woman in her thirties with damp panties, he maneuvered us so we were spooning on his couch with him behind me.
“We are in no rush for things,” he said, his wine-scented breath against my neck as we settled in. “What do they call this in books?”
“Torture?” I asked, loving the way his thumb had found my hipbone over my dress and drew erotic little circles around it.
Huffing a laugh, he kissed my shoulder. “No. A slow fire?”
“Oh.” I chuckled. “A slow burn. Yeah, this is a slow burn all right.”
“You are okay with that?”
Was I?
While I was nervous as hell to take things to the bedroom, considering I hadn’t had sex with a man since Sam was conceived, every cell in my body screamed with the urgency to be beneath Tom. To feel his skin against mine, his weight on me. I knew he’d be gentle. That he wouldn’t hurt me, and would undoubtedly bring me pleasure—for the first time ever during sex. Even if I didn’t orgasm, it would be better than every single time Rufus climbed his bloated, old, zombie corpse on top of me, pumped twice, grunted, then rolled over and went to sleep.
“You have not answered, bella. Are you okay with the slow burn of us?”
“I am,” I finally said. “We’re getting to know each other.”
He kissed my shoulder again. “We are. And I really like what I am learning.”
“Me too.”
A Canadian West Coast baby born and raised, Whitley is married to her high school sweetheart, and together they have two beautiful daughters and a fluffy dog. She spends her days making food that gets thrown on the floor, vacuuming Cheerios out from under the couch and making sure that the dog food doesn't end up in the air conditioner. But when nap time comes, and it's not quite wine o'clock, Whitley sits down, avoids the pile of laundry on the couch, and writes.
A lover of all things decadent; wine, cheese, chocolate and spicy erotic romance, Whitley brings the humorous side of sex, the ridiculous side of relationships and the suspense of everyday life into her stories. With single dads, firefighters, Navy SEALs, mommy wars, body issues, threesomes, bondage and role-playing, Whitley’s books have all the funny and fabulously filthy words you could hope for.
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