Thrill from essentially smacking naked skin first (4)
I believe the answer is:
kick
'thrill' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'essentially smacking naked skin first' is the wordplay.
'essentially' says to take the centre.
'naked' means to look at the middle letters.
'first' means one lot of letters go next to another.
The middle letters of 'smacking' are 'ck'.
The middle of 'skin' is 'ki'.
'ck' after 'ki' is 'KICK'.
'from' is the link.
(Other definitions for kick that I've seen before include "Stop" , "Rifle recoil" , "sudden acceleration" , "Apply foot to" , "Give up" .)