half-caressing

He examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the hideous scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent.

SEMPER IDEM 2010

It did not go unnoticed that the plot of Career Girls concerned a posh, Oxford-educated heroine who has an affair with a music mogul by the name of Peter, as in: "Peter's tongue was flicking up and down her spine, his fingertips lightly tracing her ribcage, half-tickling, half-caressing."

Louise Mensch: Chick-lit queen who shines at Westminster | Profile 2011

He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic, shone aslant in his eye.

Villette 2003

Annie Bray's timid, half-caressing touch of the wild-flowers.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 Various

He examined the throat of the convalescent carefully, idling over the hideous scar with the lingering, half-caressing fondness of a parent.

Semper Idem 1911

From the half-caressing tone, as much as from the very words she uttered, I inferred that she was in ignorance of the compact into which his Eminence had entered with her father -- a bargain whereof she was herself a part.

The Suitors of Yvonne: being a portion of the memoirs of the Sieur Gaston de Luynes Rafael Sabatini 1912

His manner changed in a moment, became half-quizzical, half-caressing.

Greatheart 1910

He laughed at her with the old half-caressing ridicule.

Charles Rex 1910

But it was after Delancy had left them that Hamilton reached into the inner pocket of his waistcoat, and plucked forth a little packet of tissue paper, which he unrolled with a touch that was half-caressing.

Making People Happy Thompson Buchanan 1907

(Stopping her work and coming towards him, half-caressing and half-chiding.)

The Great Adventure Arnold Bennett 1899