Dawn caught herself looking at Isha clinically. Which made some sense - doctor.

She had not looked at him that way two nights earlier, the night of their date. She'd looked at him like a girl looks at a hot guy who is paying her rapt attention, being charming and funny and buying her an expensive dinner without any moronic remarks about the fact that she can be remarkably precise when ordering. Dressing on the side, hold the mushrooms and please, God, don't overcook the tuna.

The date had been good. Isha had been good. Too good. Dawn shifted in her chair when she remembered the chaste kiss on the cheek he'd given her at Buffy's door. Damn Spike to Hell - too late - for scaring him off. She could only imagine the really detailed threats he'd laid on Isha before the poor man had come to pick her up.

Thinking of Spike brought her back to the clinical. Just because she'd been the only one to figure out that the bodyguards were Spike's food didn't mean that she was as accepting as she made it out to be. She would never, ever be less than cool about it in front of Spike or the others - her unconditional support of her vampire, pseudo-brother, kinda-father-figure, whatever-the-hell-he-was would never waver. It did wig her a little, and it wasn't just residual Riley-effect. She figured that it wasn't that way for the guards - Spike wouldn't want it that way, and what Spike wanted, Spike got. In spades, delivered by Xander, usually.

Clinically speaking, Isha was big. Not enormous like Carl, but a little taller than Xander and broader, his large body well-padded with muscle. He made her feel tiny, and that rarely happened for a woman who stood almost six feet tall barefoot. He made her feel the way Buffy must feel with, well, everybody. Small, delicate, pretty. His high cheekbones and the tilt of his eyes showed his Asian ancestry, but there was enough Anglo there for him to have a peaches and cream complexion that was warming slightly under her gaze.

Looked like Isha was getting nervous. She was staring, after all. She kept it up. Waiting. It took a lot to scare Dawn. She had breezed through the dissection of everything from a frog to a fetal pig to a human head - Isha didn't have a chance. Just for grins she put her arms over her head and stretched, feeling the soft cotton of her worn tee shirt slide up her belly, exposing a few inches of skin as she twitched her hips deeper into the armchair. His blush rose a little higher.

Finally, he broke. "What?" he asked quietly.

Dawn stared a moment longer, then unwound herself from the chair, walking over to the sofa and balancing on its arm, next to him. "I have a question," she said.

"Just one?"

"Several. Do you mind?" She absently ran her fingers through the back of his hair, watching as the short, dark strands fell back into perfectly straight lines.

"Open book," he said, shivering a bit from her touch.

"Why didn't you give me a proper goodnight kiss after our date?" She hadn't graduated first in her class by being timid.

Isha turned to her and raised one eyebrow, his expression a direct copy of Spike's. "I like my dick attached, thank you very much."

Dawn grinned. "His bark's worse than his bite," she joked, before realizing what she'd said. Isha merely pursed his lips a little and continued looking steadily at her. She trailed her fingertips down the side of his neck.

"Where does he bite you?" she asked.

Isha reached down and pushed his right sleeve up to his bicep, indicating the inside of his elbow. Dawn traced her fingers over the area, noting that it was unscarred.

"Makes sense," she said. "Good veins here." And he did have good veins, thick and prominent, crossing like blue roads just under the soft, dusky skin. She leaned down and kissed him there, then ran her tongue along the crease.

"Did he threaten you tonight?" she asked.

"No," Isha answered, his voice tight. "No time."

Dawn straightened and slid off of her perch and into his lap, looping her arms around his neck and grinning up at him. "Good."