Best way to do smooth object movement and obstacle detection+animation reset ?

Hello guys, my question might be a bit broad and I hope I'm asking in the right place, but all of that said...

I'm trying to model and practically recreate the use of a real object, a card/paper press/holder. The basic need is to be able to pull up the top bit of the press (up to a limiter), put something between the base and the "top bit" and then bring it back down but only to the new object (to simulate hold it).

What I did is make an animation, start the animation on click and it stops when it reaches the end of the animation or when it encounters another collider object. Problem I have there is that if I stop the animation before it's finished I cant then start the second part of it.... and even if I could that start point of the 2nd part of it would be different than the current end of the 1st part of the animation.

Edit : I also tried using Vector3.Slerp/Lerp but that didnt work at all... maybe I fucked it up or something.

So with all of that said, my question is, should I go for another way, not with animations, and if so do you have any tips on what/how to do that or is there a way to make it work with animation and if so if you could give a tip on that front.

If you need more info or clarifications, please ask.

Thank you for your time, sorry for the long text and I appreciate any help you can offer.