Here are all the things I try to do before touching my brakes in a pace line if I need to scrub off a tiny bit of speed, in priority order:

1. Soft pedal
2. Raise my body up and move my elbows and knees out to catch more wind
3. Offset my wheel to the left and soft pedal/coast which lets me catch more wind from #2 and gives me an escape if I start to overlap wheels
4. Very light dab on front brake if 1-2-3 fail to slow me down enough

If after #4 I'm still going too fast, I move left about a foot SMOOTHLY to get back down to the correct speed. HOPEFULLY the guy behind me isn't overlapping wheels at this exact moment since I have already moved out of line a bit in #3 .